04/05/2007 -- A Speedmaster SM 52 four-color press was recently fitted with the 25,000th printing unit at the Wiesloch-Walldorf plant of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg). This landmark press will be installed at the Drukbaert print shop in Belgium in April. The print shop’s three staff produce commercial jobs of all kinds and are looking forward to the press’s enhanced productivity and versatility. Flexible use for all customer needs, from Anicolor to the ten-color press Small and medium-sized commercial print shops regard the Speedmaster SM 52 as a standard press capable of printing the entire product range. Industrial commercial print shops find it is a valuable addition for large-format printing, enabling them to produce short runs profitably. Heidelberg unveiled the innovative Anicolor inking unit technology for the Speedmaster SM 52 at Ipex 06. This unit will make it possible in the future to produce even the shortest of runs using a standard offset workflow but with significantly better margins. The sheet travel of the Speedmaster SM 52 remains unchanged. The exceptional diversity of printing materials and high production speeds means that longer runs can be handled quickly too. At Ipex 06, the Speedmaster SM 52 was also showcased for the first time as a long perfecting press with ten printing units. For instance, this enables four colors plus a spot color to be printed on both the front and reverse in a single pass. Getting better all the time The Speedmaster SM 52 was launched at drupa 1995. Since 1996, Heidelberg has been supplying the press with a high-pile delivery, powder spray device, and inking unit temperature control. UV printing has been possible since 1998. A coating unit with an extended high-pile delivery was added in 2000, while 2002 saw the unveiling of an inline die-cutting unit. This is located after the last printing unit and means that printing, die-cutting, kiss-cutting, perforating, and creasing can be performed in a single pass. The Speedmaster SM 52 was presented at drupa 2004 as the first press of its format class to be available with eight printing units. Since drupa 2004, the Speedmaster SM 52 has also been available with an expanded stock range up to 0.6 millimeter (0.024 inch). The stock thickness was previously limited to 0.4 millimeter (0.016 inch). Customers can now offer an extended service portfolio, printing on a full range of materials. Material thickness extension is useful, for example, for folding cartons, thin card, stands for place cards or book covers. Since the end of 2004, the Speedmaster SM 52 inline die-cutting unit has also been offered in combination with a coating unit. Printing, coating and subsequent die-cutting in the press are now possible in a single pass. The combination of coating and die-cutting is only possible with UV technology. This solution is most cost-effective for shorter print runs (< 50,000 sheets) of folding cartons, presentation folders, and kiss-cut self-adhesive labels. The chamber doctor blade coating unit, which has been available since 2005, even enables processing of pigmented coatings, e.g. metallic coatings (silver, gold or Iriodin coatings), and opaque white. This means print shops can achieve a variety of coating effects, while applying an accurately defined and reproducible quantity of coating. The chamber doctor blade coating unit is supplied instead of the Heidelberg two-roller system.