The imaging heads and blanket belt are positioned above the cylinder assembly.

The web press models differ in that they use high-speed web handling mechanisms developed in-house by Landa. The web presses – the single-sided W5 and W10 for flexible packaging, and duplex W50 for commercial printing – have some special features, because of the way Nanography makes use of the intermediate heated blanket belt.

The blanket belt has a seam that needs to be avoided when laying down the image. Dancer rollers are used on the web transport to compensate for this, and a section of the paper web is reversed in order to marry up the substrate with the next image position on the blanket. It’s similar to the way some label converting lines operate, albeit on the Landa devices this is happening at extremely high speed because the web presses run at 200m/min.

Landa describes it as “very good engineering” that uses servo devices to register the end of the previous image to the beginning of the next one.

Another aspect of the W50 also demonstrates Landa’s outside-the-box thinking compared with conventional press structures. The W50 uses the same one-metre-wide printing module as the B1 sheetfed press, but in this case half is used to print side one of the web, which is then turned and the other half of the print module is used to print the second side, hence its ability to print 200m/min duplex.

‘Wow’ factor

A major ‘wow’ factor is the radically different and futuristic look of each Landa press, which can be operated via a giant three-metre touchscreen running along the front of the machine. Landa’s stated aim is to make printing press operation as intuitive as operating an iPhone. “If they can use a cell phone they can run this machine,” he says.

The right-hand side of the display has all the job management features. Jobs are automatically organised into the optimum workflow, but the operator can override this in the case of an urgent job.

The left-hand side of the screen shows the machine functions, such as ink and paper handling. The operator can also choose to display a live camera feed on the touchscreen showing what’s going on inside the machine itself.

When a press is running unattended, it switches into ‘vital signs mode’ and the touchscreen displays giant numbers showing how many minutes and seconds will elapse before the press needs operator intervention, for example more paper or an ink change. This information is also shown on a portable tablet device that can be carried around the workplace. Landa believes a single operator could run as many as three, and possibly even four, presses.