KBA North America, a leading supplier of sheetfed offset and digital presses based in Williston, VT, is announcing that the 100th Rapida printing unit of the super large-format series was put through its final print testing at the KBA plant in Radebeul, Germany at the end of September. The unit is part of the five-color Rapida 205 purchased by IntegraColor, a high-quality visual communications printing company located in Mesquite, Texas. The press has been configured with a special board-handling package and is also to be equipped with UV facilities for printing on plastics. It also incorporates an ICS slitter system and non-stop pile changing for the feeder and delivery. The fully automatic plate changing system is already a standard feature on the super large-format Rapida’s., just like the one on the 41” Rapida 105 and on the Rapida large-format presses. Just 18 months after the official market launch of the Rapida 185 and Rapida 205 series, with the unveiling of the first operational press of this new generation during an open house at Ellerhold Posters in Radebeul, there are already 20 super large-format presses at work in eight different countries. Five more are to be delivered by the end of the year, and the first presses for next year have already been sold. The world’s longest super large-format press to date is the Rapida 205 with seven printing units, coater and dryer unit chosen by National Posters in Chattanooga, Tennessee. KBA’s super large-format presses move into commercial markets The demand for the super large-format Rapida presses has from the beginning far exceeded original expectations. These presses are no longer considered an exclusive domain for poster and display printers, having also become a press of choice for commercial work as well as packaging and book production. The manufacturing capacities for these series at the KBA facility in Germany have thus been extended accordingly.