Our today’s article is dedicated to a legendary press that has no doubt become such during 35 years on the assembly line. Many printers love them for their unpretentiousness, high-capacity inking unit and relatively low price of a used machine.

Faber & Schleicher, now known as Manroland Sheetfed, founded in 1871, has a long and illustrious history as a printing press manufacturer. As part of our project on sheetfed presses, we are very interested in their history, which influenced the development of the post-war printing industry. 

 

A bit of history

What is interesting about this company in terms of printing press design?

The first MAN Roland offset printing press, produced in 1911 (although some sources mention 1912 as the date of the start of production), had a format of 50 x 70 cm. This format was large enough for the time and allowed for efficient printing of various types of products such as books, posters and commercial printed matter. The machine confidently occupied the niche of offset printing in its time. But it was a long way away from the major inventions in the field of plate processes.

At the beginning of the 20th century, when the first Roland offset printing machine appeared (1911-1912), the plates were made using a rather complex technology that required high precision and craftsmanship. The process of making offset plates included the following steps:

1. Preparation of the image on the negative:

1. • The image to be printed was first photographed from the original image onto a photographic plate. This was a negative of the image where the highlights were made dark and the dark areas were made light.

2. Making the plate:

1. • The resulting negative was then contact-exposed onto a special plate coated with a photosensitive layer (usually made of albumin or bichromate gelatin). When exposed through the negative, the light affected the photosensitive layer only where there were transparent areas on the negative.

3. Plate development and fixation:

1. • After exposure, the plate was developed. During the process, the photosensitive layer on the plate hardened where it was exposed. The rest of the layer which was not exposed, was washed away.
   • The plate was then treated orthophosphoric acid, which etched the exposed metal, creating the space and printing elements.

4. Mounting the plate on a plate cylinder:

1. • The finished plate, which was a metal sheet with a flat image, was mounted on the plate cylinder of the machine.

5. Printing:

1. • In the printing process, the offset machine transferred ink from the plate to a rubber blanket (fixed on the offset cylinder) and then, through the pressure by an impression cylinder, to the paper.

The plates were handmade at the time, making the process long and labour-intensive. Letterpress printing was much more common, especially when it came to printing newspapers and text works. But the new machine did very well in another niche where letterpress printing was too expensive. These were graphic works, mostly without raster, especially with a large sheet area, and even in several colours. The image was bright and uniform, and the plate process was in many ways similar to the production of letterpress clichés.

In 1921 Faber & Schleicher became part of MAN company, and all the machines they produced were called Roland.A bit later the machine was slightly modified. The ‘Klein-Roland 00’ one-colour offset machine introduced in 1922 could print up to 5000 sheets per hour.

 

Active development of offset printing

However, the company’s heyday came in the post-war period, when offset printing was most developed. In contrast to Heidelberg, MAN Roland decided to focus on offset.

The first two-colour offset printing machine of the planetary type appeared in 1951. This machine, called the Roland Ultra, was a milestone in the company’s history because it allowed the printing of two colours in one run of paper, which significantly increased the efficiency of the printing process. It was at this time that the planetary design of the machine came into its own. This meant that two printing units were arranged around one central impression cylinder, allowing two colours to be printed simultaneously. From this point on, the company became a leader in the production of planetary type machines.

Thus, one printing unit contained two plate cylinders, two blanket cylinders and one, common, impression cylinder. When the idea to produce machines for application of 4 or more printing inks together appeared, the two-colour units were connected by means of a common crank shaft, and the sheet transfer system was built on the basis of a chain grippers. Such examples were Ultra, Favorit, 200th and 800th series of the company’s printing presses, which appeared in the 70s and about which we will talk more later.

The planetary printing press was cheaper to produce than a press built on the unit principle. But it had two fundamental problems with which MAN Roland tried long and hard to combat.

1. The application of the first and second ink is done on a single, common, printing cylinder

The distance between the application points on the same impression cylinder is very small. The ink did not have enough time to be sufficiently absorbed before applying the next ink on the same impression cylinder. Therefore, the colours could mutually transfer into each other, and after a few thousand impressions the shade would start to change. This applied even to two-colour machines.

The printer, aware of this problem, had to clearly adhere to the sequence of application of colours, avoiding the simultaneous application of yellow and black colours. And the first colour must be lighter than the next. Fulfilment of these rules allowed to work on the machine without flushing. For many decades, the colour of the ink itself was not controlled at all in the printing house and depended on the skills of the machine operator.

2. Multi-colour versions of the machines were created from two-colour units by means of chain transfer of the sheet.

Double-ink printing units were driven by a common crankshaft. The clamshell chains tended to stretch, resulting in register defects.

This page from the MAN Roland Ultra press catalogue demonstrates the construction principles of planetary machines with chain sheet transfer between the units.

This page from the catalogue of the MAN Roland Ultra, the predecessor of the MAN Roland R700, demonstrates the principles of planetary presses with chain transfer of the sheet between the units.

In this way, the first unit applied the first and second inks, the second the third and fourth inks, the third the fifth and so on. If the chains between the first unit and the second unit were stretched, needless to say, the machine would stop matching all subsequent colours. The chains have to be tightened as soon as backlash and misalignment occurred. This design was quite controversial, but MAN Roland kept it in production until 2000.

Our PressInspection team has a special series of tests for sheet feed control designed specifically for this type of any planetary machine – Roland 200, Roland Favorit, Roland 800.

At the same time…

MAN Roland stuck to the planetary arrangement to the last, and completely discontinued it with the discontinuation of the well-known 200 series in 2000.

Colour control systems began to appear in the early 1970s. But particularly active development of control standards began in the mid-1980s.

Heidelberg made a bet on spectrophotometric quality control, introducing the CPC-2 console at the DRUPA exhibition. But it was difficult to translate the CIE Lab coordinate readings into ink layer thickness. All printing units have to be involved to be adjusted at the same time, and this is considered to be the ultimate feat.

Therefore MAN Roland, KBA and all other manufacturers decided to control only the optical density of the ink by measuring the reflection from the paper surface. It was easier to measure and linked to the ink flow control. In addition, the optical density parameter did not show changes in the colour characteristics of the inks due to the mutual transition of the inks into each other. It played into the hands of the planetary machine manufacturers.

DRUPA 1986 showed that printing speeds of new presses began to increase. Thanks to the development of electronics in the control systems of machines began to appear unusual for older models.

It became clear that the planetary printing press system was obsolete and that a replacement was urgently needed.

This is why MAN Roland began to actively develop the B1 unit printing machine in the mid-1980s. Now let’s take a look at the Roland R700, where all of the aforementioned problems stretching back to mid-century have been successfully resolved.

New model MAN Roland R700

In 1990, the brand new ROLAND 700 was presented at the DRUPA exhibition. In fact, the company offered not only a machine, but an entire production management system solution called PECOM.

This year, 1990, could be called the year of the printing revolution, which set new standards for print quality for decades to come.

 

What distinguished the new machine from earlier models?

• The unit construction of the machine with gear drive. Gone were the chain clamshells between the sections.
• The new design made it possible to produce machines up to 12 sections long in a line.
• Dampening system Rolandmatic with delta effect. When printing a package, the dampener roller rotated 12% faster, allowing it to wipe dust particles off the plate. This dramatically reduced the number of rejects on dusty papers.
• Mabeg’s new feeder with patented vacuum belt on the transport table was specially designed for this model MAN Roland R700. Soon it became an industry standard. It is equipped with three chambers, each with a different vacuum value. The feeder is very easy to set up. It is devoid of transport rollers and brushes. No more ink smearing, no more traces of dirty rubber rollers.
• Sheet perfecting device with pincer grippers. In the early days, the machine could even be equipped with two (!) devices. But users soon noted their capriciousness if a little skipped maintenance. That is why on the aftermarket such machines cost a little less than ‘straight’ versions.

What else?

• Several types of deliveries, from the simplest, suitable for low speeds, to several types of extended version. I have encountered at least four variations of receivers, depending on the configuration. If a module for powder extraction is attached, a non-removable cabinet with many wires appears at the back of the delivery. This device cannot be dismantled for transport as it does not fit into a standard container because of width.
• Rolandmatic dampening unit with characteristic curves of the solution supply versus machine speed.
• A control panel with an interface based on the newly introduced MS-DOS operating system and recording of settings data on a floppy disc.
• Each printing unit had one plate cylinder, one blanket cylinder, one impression cylinder and transfer cylinder. The electronics boards were located just behind the side cover of the printed unit. When testing these used machines, PressInspection team makes sure to check the vibration of each unit, as improperly prepared floor foundations often caused electronics failures.
• MAN Roland tested each unit of R700 individually at the factory, with no pre-assembly or print proof test. Therefore, the sections only met each other for the first time when the machine was assembled at the print shop.

The sunset of an era

Despite some failures and shortcomings, the machine turned out to be of real quality. And, most importantly, it devoid of the disadvantages of the old planetary concept. The sharp rise in sales of the new model in the early 1990s made it clear that customers had been waiting for unit-constructed machine from MAN Roland for a long time. As a result, the R700 model remained on the assembly line for quite long time.

However, as the years went by, the machine gradually ceased to look so impressive in the midst of constantly updated competitor solutions around 2005. The interface of the machines produced in those years was still based on old MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 solutions. Even the MABEG feeder started to obsolete. None of the German competitors in those years had such a solution of the head of the feeder with countless protruding hoses. At the same time KBA showed the P40, which the company positioned as a machine for the higher segment. Heidelberg had been actively developing its high-speed XL105 model since 2003, and only MAN Roland had nothing but its Roland R700.

It is not quite clear why MAN Roland has missed the innovations of its competitors. But it tried to improve its proven model with more modern solutions.

In 2006, the company introduced a new technology for independent servo drive of the print sections, the ‘DirectDrive’. This made it possible to disconnect the sections and thus minimise the time needed to prepare the machine for work. However, 2007 was a critical year for MAN Roland company in terms of management errors and led to a drop in sales.

 

How MAN Roland became Manroland

The company distributed its products with the help of dealers who offered Ryobi printing machines to customers to fill the B3 format segment. At one point, however, the Japanese company showed a B2 and then a B1 machine. These machines were significantly cheaper than Man Roland equipment, and they began to be positioned as equipment for beginners. However, the Ryobi equipment was not bad, and dealers began to be so eager to sell them. This led to internal competition between the two brands, and was one of the reasons for MAN Roland’s crisis.

The company was still trying to squeeze as much as possible out of the existing R700 model. The following year, 2008, the speed of the MAN Roland 700 was increased from 16.5 to 18 thousand sheets per hour. In the same year, management mistakes led the company to split into two parts. The factory in Offenbach, responsible for sheetfed offset production, was acquired by Langley Holdings Company and changed its name to Manroland Sheetfeed.

It should be noted that for 35 years of being on the assembly line the Roland R700 machine has seriously evolved. To date, more than thirty thousand ROLAND 700 HiPrint units have been produced, sold worldwide in many different configurations. These have included machines for both book production, packaging and even rainbow printing for security papers.

 

Equipment

The MAN Roland 700 HiPrint handles material thicknesses from 0.04mm to 1mm. It makes the machine a truly versatile press that works with a wide range of printable materials – from paper and board to plastics and composites, as well as in-mould foils. With in-line options – varnishing, quality control and other configurations allowing up to 12 print units with perfecting device. The Roland 700 HiPrint has become a proven solution for many printers all over the world. Even now, twenty-year-old models are in good demand.

The HiPrint model can be retrofitted with Manroland In-lineFoiler for increased quality and cost-effectiveness. Non-Stop on feeder and delivery (manual or fully automatic version) for continuous operation is available. APL™ system – a fully automatic plate changing system, instead of standard semi-automatic PPL. Also optional 3B Plus format for added versatility was introduced. We also should mention the Manroland QuickChange and Inline inline technologies and other features, depending on the year of release, include TripleFlow ink unit, intelligent speed compensation for the ink unit and dampening system, effective solutions for eliminating the effects of templating, etc.

 

New generation

In 2014, production finally began on the absolutely new MAN Roland R700 ‘Evolution’ printing press. But the familiar MAN Roland R700 continued to be produced for some time. There are around 260 units of the Hi-Print series of machines from 2014-2015 with simultaneous plate mounting and a redesigned interface produced and sold.

Today, Manroland sheetfed continues to follow the chosen path of development and to shape the market for sheetfed presses with innovative solutions, offering the best that a manufacturer in the sheetfed offset sector can present on the market. The old machines are still welcome in the world’s print shops, thanks to their unpretentiousness and ability to deliver high print quality.

 

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