More than 200 industry people visited the GiDue showroom in Turate, Italy, last week for the launch of the Xpannd offset press. GiDue’s open house was held concurrently with Converflex Milan.

The servo driven Xpannd press in the showroom is 370mm (14.5″) wide, has eight print stations and is configured with UV offset and UV flexo. The press features the new Intelligent Register system from GiDue for automatic register of the printing units, and PC press interface for interactive print management and job tracking.

“The press is designed for frequent job changes and short runs,” says Managing Director Federico d’Annunzio. “With the significantly lower costs for plate origination offered by the offset process, considerable savings for printers can be realized in this area alone. Further significant savings can be achieved because the press is optimized to idle down to 12 meters per minute (40 fpm) during job setup to limit waste. The Xpannd makes life easy for the printer whether skilled or unskilled because all job and printing parameters on the press, including ink wash-up and ink/water dampening on the offset print units, are automatically controlled.”

Xpannd is also available in 430mm (17″) and 530mm (21″) widths with a wide range of converting options, and can be specified to include any combination of flexo, offset and screen printing processes.