Indigo lines are planning on releasing a new digital label printer by late of this year that will double the printing of wine label printers. Many local wine label printers have been eager to find a faster digital label printing machine to get their printing jobs done.
The previous version of HP’s digital label printer is the Web Stream 4000 or WS4000. It was able to print up to 52 feet per minute with 4 colors and just about twice of that for 2 colors. The Web Stream 4000 is able to print up to 7 colors but the number of colors use affects the time required to print per feet.
WS4000
The WS4000 is actually quite efficient but with the more competitions and the higher demand, their speed is just not enough and the demand for a faster and more efficient digital label printer increase.
HP debuted their latest version of digital label printers at the Labelexpo trade show in Chicago last September and they are planning on selling their newest version of digital label printers by end of the year. Their newest digital label printer version is called Web Stream 6000 or WS6000.
WS6000
The Web Stream 6000 digital label printer promises to double the amount of prints per minute as compared to the older version, WS4000, which can only make 52 feet of digital labels in a minute on 4 colors. The WS6000 can print in 4 colors at about 100 feet of prints in a minute and up to 200 feet of prints per minute if only two colors are used. That is about twice the speed of the WS4000! The WS6000 digital label printer can also print up to 7 colors just like the WS4000.
The WS6000 is said to make digital printing even more attractive for even more jobs. The break even for the WS6000 is higher as well. For WS4000, the break even point is said to be about 50,000 labels but with the WS6000 it would be around 100,000 to just break even. The break even point depends on different factors that should be considered such as the amount of ink needed and labor.
Digital label printing has several advantages compared to other forms of printing. First of all, when you digitally print a label, the labor cost would be greatly reduced and at the same time, the amount of waste generated would also be greatly reduced. This means, by concept, that when you use a digital label printer, you are being more economical and at the same time being more ecological as well. And of course, with digital label printing, the job is done a lot faster. Much more now that the new WS6000 promises to even double the speed.
So how does the WS6000 double its speed compared to the WS4000? One reason for the speed increase is that the WS6000 has a larger area for imaging to the maximum possible imaging coverage area for each impression. Therefore, the repeat area for the WS6000 is now 12.48×38.58 inches compared to the 12.1×17.7 inches by the WS4000. Also, the WS6000 uses less ink because of better opacity and therefore the drying time for the ink is also much less.
The speed offered by WS6000 is remarkable and rather tempting but when you take a look at its price you would have to consider first whether or not your printing company can already afford to buy it now. The WS4000 is worth about $500,000 for 4 colors or it would be upgraded at no charge to have the capacity of the WS4500. The new WS6000 is quoted to be worth $800,000 for 4 colors or up to $1 million for seven colors without including the price for its inline accessories. So, basically, the price for WS6000 is also double that of WS4000.
Of course, considering the double of the price compared to the previous version doesn’t mean that there aren’t any real advantages to owning this new version of digital label printer. It is much better to maintain one equipment than maintaining 2. The overall cost for WS6000 is set to be much less compared to maintaining 2 WS4000 printers.
