Apex celebrated the official launch of the recently announced Ryobi 525GE B3 landscape format offset press at its November open house event. The event, staged on November 4th and 5th at Apex’s Hemel Hempstead HQ, was staged to celebrate the company’s 20th Anniversary, and Ryobi’s 35 years of supplying printing equipment to the UK market.
The GE Series was announced as the successor to the HE Series of entry level presses by Ryobi at Drupa 2008. To date the range has included two and four-colour press variants. The announcement of the five-colour version of the machine offers printers a significant space and price saving over the equivalent Ryobi GX Series machine.
With regard to the configuration of the new press, Neil Handforth, Sales and Marketing Director at Apex Digital Graphics, said: “The five-colour configuration of the GX Series is probably our most popular. The GE variant offers considerable automation, but will take some 38% less space than a five-colour GX machine, making it ideal for companies where shop floor space is at a premium.”
 The new 525GE will come complete with low pile delivery – another space saving feature. The press can also be fitted with a swing-away numbering unit (NP option) – the first time that this option has been made available for a five-colour Ryobi press. The NP option can also be retrofitted. As standard the machine will be shipped with Ryobi’s PCS-JX printing control system, incorporating an LCD touch-screen display and on-board PC for efficient networking.
“This new GE machine gives us more options,” added Neil Handforth. “We have had situations in the past where prospects were keen to invest in a five-colour B3format machine, but available space meant that the GX was not suitable for them. The GE, with its very compact design, will help us to resolve such issues.”
Combining function and style in an attractive new design the Ryobi 520GE Series includes many features for reducing make-ready times. These include semi-automatic plate changing as standard, as well as automated cleaning for ink rollers and blankets, and Ink Volume Setter software for the efficient transfer of ink profile information from the pre-press department. The PCS-JX incorporates Ryobi Program Inking to automatically supply ink to the ink rollers to match the image from the very start of printing.
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