BSFZ seal for innovative process-free printing plates – KRAUSE-Biagosch sets new standards

With its new Krause xStream development, KRAUSE-Biagosch secured the red BSFZ seal for 2024. It serves as visible proof of the company’s technological capabilities – also to customers, partners, and international locations. The ability to generate new ideas, develop them further, and successfully transform them into market-ready solutions has always been a central focus at KRAUSE-Biagosch. The BSFZ seal now officially confirms this claim.

Krause xStream – an innovation with market success

The Krause xStream is a first-of-its-kind new development that has already successfully established itself on the market. This innovation combines an external drum system with fast charging technology, efficient Krause electronics, and 3D-printed special beam components. The system is setting new standards in the newspaper printing industry.

Process-free printing plates that can be printed directly without chemical development have not yet become widely accepted in newspaper printing. Conventional systems are mostly based on commercial imagesetters with lasers and light valve modulators. This technology is comparatively inefficient and involves high energy consumption.

KRAUSE-Biagosch has developed a forward-looking solution for this: an external drum process with a fast loading system that uses multi-channel lasers. These work on the principle of direct exposure without modulators, with infrared wavelengths of 830 nm and outputs of 160 to 200 mW per channel. For the first time, a fast drum loader and unloader as well as an automatic plate loader have been combined in one design.

Five innovation packages that go beyond the state of the art

As part of the development, five key innovation packages were implemented, which together go well beyond the current state of technology:

1. High-performance exposure electronics

The exposure electronics are based on hardware-accelerated pixel sorting. An FPGA solution handles computationally intensive processes and replaces traditional software calculations. It is supplemented by a second ARM-CPU that executes a sorting algorithm in real time. The result is, significantly increased processing speed with maximum precision.

2. Parallel control of multiple laser modules

Thanks to FPGA technology, up to six multi-channel laser modules can be controlled in parallel. This synchronous control enables uniform, fast, and energy-efficient exposure—a decisive advantage over conventional systems.

3. Extremely fast plate changeover

An innovative loading and unloading system allows particularly fast plate changeovers thanks to pre-alignment without any loss of accuracy. Loading and unloading take place in parallel while the drum accelerates to up to 1100 rpm in just one second. This significantly increases productivity.

4. New printing plate clamping system

The newly developed clamping technology made of 3D-printed stainless steel enables plate changes in just 7 seconds, extremely narrow clamping edges of only 0.5 mm, and speeds of up to 1200 rpm. The self-locking clamps are activated during rotation for further time savings and ensure maximum safety and stability during operation. The 3D printing system for metal used by Krause to manufacture the clamps, works on the principle of Selective-Laser-Melting (SLS).

5. Integration into a complete machine

The innovation is rounded off by the combination of a newspaper loader with an external drum for up to 300 printing plates per hour. The complete integration of all components into a powerful complete machine creates a highly efficient system for modern newspaper printing.

Innovation with a future

With the Krause xStream and the award of the BSFZ seal, KRAUSE-Biagosch is underlining its commitment to actively driving technological development and creating sustainable solutions for the printing industry. The support from the German government is not only a recognition of the company’s achievements to date, but also an incentive to continue consistently on its path of innovation.