Heatset printing has never been reasonable for newspapers because of the speeds at which they need to work.

Baldwin Technology Co., with its Infra Orange product, is aiming to give newspapers some of the benefits of heatset printing, such as improved quality, while avoiding the pitfalls, such as the requirement of cooling systems and reduced printing speeds.

Infra Orange was the result of a joint project between Baldwin IVT and Sun Chemical.

“We realized there was a gap in the market. There was a coldset printer out there that wanted to improve the product slightly, go to semi-commercial, and pitch for jobs they couldn’t,” said John Leek, director of newspaper sales at Baldwin. “That was the market that Sun was going for with their enhanced inks.

“We got together, and we decided to look into the relationship of inks to the dryer, and what we could do for the ink companies and what the ink companies could do for us in terms of formulation” Leek continued. “We came up with a system that we called Infra Orange because we considered it to not quite be infrared.”

Infra Orange uses short-wave infrared, a little heat and moving hot air, according to Leek, but does not raise the temperature of the web considerably. Sun Chemical, in turn, developed an enhanced ink that uses novel resins and polymer chemistry. The combination of the two products gives a newspaper the capability to print newspapers, supplements and some commercial work.

Infra Orange will not completely dry the ink, according to Leek, so newspapers will still have to allow some drying to be done by absorption. It does help improve print quality by reducing through-press marking, increasing ink density and improving rub resistance.

“It’s working as an aid to get the product through the press, folder and mailroom with a minimal amount of marking,” Leek said.

The Infra Orange system is mounted at the top of a tower, preferably before the web goes through the angle bars.

Looking a bit like a clamshell, Infra Orange has heat elements on the top and bottom, and can be designed to match the width of the web. As the web passes through, it is met with instant heat. The system will not raise the temperature of the web more than 20 degrees, according to Leek, so there is no need to install a cooling system. Because it doesn’t use heatset ink, he added, there is no air pollution to worry about.

One of the first printers to use the system was a company in the United Kingdom, who was printing a 64-page TV book but had problems with markings in the middle pages.

“We improved this product considerably. It wasn’t as good as heatset, but he didn’t expect it to be as good,” Leek said, explaining that Infra Orange was able to solve the marking problem, without the printer having to reduce his production speed.