DuPont Color Communication today announced the North America commercial launch of the new DuPont™ Cromaprint™ 22UV digital printing system at the Graphics Canada show in Toronto (Nov. 10-12) and the SGIA Digital show in Phoenix (Dec. 8-10).

The DuPont™ Cromaprint™ 22UV is a complete inkjet digital printing system made up of all DuPont components – 82 inch wide UV Cure combination flatbed/roll-to-roll production print engine, next generation patent pending extended gamut UV Curable ink technology, an all new DuPont™ Cromanet™ CS (color server) providing RIP, spectral color management, and production workflow tools, and installed with DuPont award winning service and support. The total package is specifically designed to meet the high volume and high speed production needs for digital printing onto the widest variety of rigid and flexible media using a wide gamut six color, plus white, UV Curable inkset. The Cromaprint™ 22UV offers print job flexibility to print onto substrates such as PVC, foam boards, acrylics, corrugated, glass, styrene, aluminium, wood, and within two minutes switch over to print onto flexible media such as DuPont™ Tyvek®, vinyl, and polyester film such as DuPont Teijin Melinex®.

"We are excited to launch the Cromaprint™ 22UV system after a successful, albeit long, beta period," said Craig Reid, DuPont new business development manager. "While we showed the original prototype almost one year ago, we decided early on to only launch when the system performance would absolutely meet our customer’s performance expectations, which we can now say is ready to go. This also gave us time to develop a next generation extended gamut Cromaprint™ UV Cure ink to ensure accurate color reproduction with high gloss, fast curing, and great adhesion to the widest variety of substrates."

The Cromaprint™ 22 UV print performance specifications include: Image area of up to 82 inches wide and up to 2 inches thick, high resolution up to 800 x 600 dpi, realistic production speeds up 441 square feet per hour, a 5 zone vacuum system to allow print job flexibility, 14 Spectra 256 printheads (C,M,Y,K,lc, lm + white), front to back registration for boards and automatic take-up for roll-to-roll media, and the Cromanet™ CS workflow and color tools to do the highest quality production on the widest variety of substrates.

"We continue to get the input from many of our customers and the market that wide format inkjet, especially UV Cure technologies, are in high growth mode," claims Bill King, DuPont product manager for North America. "It was a natural extension for DuPont to build from our strong background in producing the highest quality inkjet digital proofing systems, to building inkjet system solutions for wide format inkjet. With Cromaprint™ 22 UV, we take all the sophisticated color features of our proofing software and integrated it into an easy to use productive package, called Cromanet™ CS, to produce predictable color results for wide format inkjet from all workflows, color matched between proofing and digital printing. With our Cromanet™ software driving the Cromaprint™ 22UV system we can produce near Cromalin® proofing like color quality at production print speeds without the trial and error approach common in wide format today. We are also expanding our global service and support from packaging graphics and proofing to now include digital printing applications. From installation, to training, to call centers, and highly qualified technical specialists, we provide our customers trust in DuPont to get the overall services that keep them productive."

The DuPont™ Cromaprint™ 22UV digital printing systems will be sold direct and through select distribution channels on a country by country basis. Concurrent with the launch is a new DuPont website specific to color management, digital proofing, and digital printing which is http://www.color-communication.dupont.com.

For additional information on DuPont Imaging Technologies’ products, please call: Cathy Higgins, MC Americas, T. +1 (302) 999-2250, cathy.higgins@usa.dupont.com; Pier Luigi Sassanelli, MC Europe, T. +49 (0)6102 18 4400, email pier-luigi.sassanelli@dupont.com; or visit the web sites at http://www.color-communication.dupont.com and http://www.packaging-graphics.dupont.com .

DuPont is a science company. Founded in 1802, DuPont puts science to work by creating sustainable solutions essential to a better, safer, healthier life for people everywhere. Operating in more than 70 countries, DuPont offers a wide range of innovative products and services for markets including agriculture, nutrition, electronics, communications, safety and production, home and construction, and transportation and apparel.

The DuPont Oval Logo, DuPont™, The miracles of science™, Cromaprint™, Cromanet™, Tyvek® and Cromalin® are registered trademarks or trademarks of DuPont