...Risograph Printers...

Firs of all what is a Risograph and how it works ?, well it's simple A Risograph is a high-speed, multifunctional digital printing system and designed mainly for high-volume photocopying and printing. The Risograph is the perfect self-contained reprographics system as it offers the convenience of a copier the economy of a duplicator, and the durability of an offset press. A Risograph bring together several processes which were previously carried out manually. The original is scanned through the machine and a master is created, by means of tiny heat spots on a thermal plate burning voids (corresponding to image areas) in a master sheet. This master is then wrapped around a drum and ink is forced through the voids in the master. The paper runs flat through the machine while the drum rotates at high speed to create each image on the paper, the simple technology is highly reliable compared to a standard photocopier and can achieve both very high speeds. Because the process involves real ink - like offset printing - and does not require heat to fix the image on the paper - like a photocopier or laser printer - the output from a risograph can be treated like any printed material, it means that sheets which have been through a risograph may happily go through a laser printer afterwards and vice-versa. Risographs have typically had interchangeable colour inks and drums allowing for printing in different colours or using spot colour in one print job. The Riso MZ series models have two ink drums allowing two colours to be printed in one pass. The latest Riso model, the HC 5500, uses a high speed ink-jet technology to achieve full (4) colour at 120 pages per minute. Be aware boring article for your health don't read...