KBA North America, a leading supplier of sheetfed offset and digital presses based in Williston, VT, and DRAABE, the world’s leading manufacturer of humidification equipment based in Lexington, Mass., are announcing a joint partnership in which KBA has equipped its Customer Demonstration Center in Williston with a DRAABE high-pressure air humidification system and a standardized process water system. The newly-expanded 8,000 sq ft KBA Customer Demonstration Center in Williston, Vt. is equipped with a full prepress department and a wide array of KBA presses, including the Genius 52UV, 74 Karat, Performa 74 and a Rapida 105 all printing on a wide variety of substrates from canvas to plastic and 40lb to 48 pt paper/board using waterless, waterless UV, conventional, hybrid, UV and conductive inks with dispersion, UV, pearlescent and aqueous coatings. The new demo center provides KBA customers and potential customers with the ability to test jobs, see the high-quality presses in action, and take advantage of seminars and workshops for training. “We feel that constant, optimum air humidity is the most important climatic parameter for high print quality and a trouble-free production process,” says Wafik Kouchouk, director of sales for DRAABE in Lexington, Mass. “If the relative air humidity in printing plants falls to critical low levels, the result can be paper distortion, static, impaired machine running, production stoppages and result in avoidable additional costs. The maximum possible production speeds of modern high-performance printing presses are often unattainable when the air humidity is too low. We felt that our system would be invaluable to the KBA demonstration center.” Energy efficient, quiet, and drip free In order to create optimum conditions for the new medium-format KBA Rapida 105 41-inch sheetfed press, which with an increased printing speed of up to 18,000 sheets/hr sets new standards as well as the two waterless presses: the 74 Karat and the Genius 52 UV, KBA decided to equip its Customer Center in Williston with DRAABE high-pressure air humidification: the pulsating hydraulic flow and special titanium nozzles in the DRAABE TurboFog System atomize the water to a micro-fine aerosol directly in the room. Not only is this procedure very energy efficient, it is also quiet and absolutely drip free. The air humidity is controlled by a precision hygrostat. The atomization is activated as soon as the air humidity falls below the set optimum value. Only highly pure, de-mineralized water from a reverse osmosis unit integrated in the DRAABE System is used in order to ensure hygienic and trouble-free operation of the air humidification system. The pure water produced in the reverse osmosis unit is also used as standardized process water to feed the KBA Rapida105 sheetfed press. Economical and reliable system Prepared de-mineralized water protects printing presses against corrosion and reduces operating costs, for example by lowering the consumption of chemicals and the cleaning work. "This double benefit, combined with the special DRAABE Full Service Maintenance Concept, makes the system particularly economical and reliable," says Ralf Sammeck, President & CEO of KBA North America, in explaining why he opted for DRAABE.