Sussex, Wisconsin – QuadTech has enhanced its closed-loop Register Guidance System with automated features such as fan-out control, cocking control, anti-embossing, front-to-back register control, and ink guiding. The enhancements answer the growing need for precision measurement, reduced waste and optimum productivity on the latest high-speed, extra-wide newspaper printing presses.

Automatic fan-out control minimizes register errors due to web-stretch in the humid environment of the printing towers. Its development was prompted by the trend toward wider-web presses, on which the occurrence of fan-out errors is more likely.

QuadTech's fan-out control software automatically keeps the press in lateral register across the full width of the web, throughout the entire run. Register control cameras mounted on both the gear and operator sides of the web capture tiny shifts in lateral register and instantly make automatic corrections via an interface with the bustle wheels.

For presses equipped with cocking motors, QuadTech's cocking control automatically makes adjustments to realign circumferential register when plate cocking changes occur. The operator can configure the system for the specific application and monitor the print run from a central control platform, without the need for tooling. Furthermore, an anti-embossing feature automatically enables the dot to print in different locations on the blanket, preventing piling, ghosting and embossing, while stabilizing dot gains across the web. Especially in situations where frequent blanket washes are needed, this reduces ink build-up and waste.

Automatic front-to-back register control precisely aligns the printed image on both surfaces of the web, ensuring  accurate placement on both sides of the page after trimming.

Also, QuadTech's ink guiding solution senses tiny shifts and deviations in image positioning and corrects the print-to-slitter register by adjusting the web guide.

Vince Balistrieri, general manager of QuadTech's commercial and newspaper Strategic Business Unit, says: "There has been significant advancement in press performance in recent times, but exploiting the higher speed and quality they bring is only possible with intelligent, automated register control technology. The addition of these time-saving automated controls eliminates the risks of subjective and error-prone manual adjustments. With the current financial pressures on printers, there's a heightened need for money-saving controls. We're providing solutions that result in faster production lines producing higher quality color."

One of the first to purchase the newly enhanced Register Guidance System with MultiCam register cameras is Voralrlberger Medienhaus Group, an international media house based in Schwarzach, Austria. The system will feature on five towers of the 1220 mm wide manroland GEOMAN web-offset press at the Schwarzach plant, boosting the performance of a press that has been producing over five million newspapers and inserts per week since going operational in 1994. The MultiCam color register cameras detect register upsets on each tower immediately, identifying marks down to 0.36 mm (0.014"), at speeds of up to 17.6 m/s (3,500 ft/min), while making up to 30 searches per second.