Flexographic Printing Technology Innovation

At a series of international printing exhibitions in recent years, a very attractive phenomenon was the enthusiastic participation of the packaging industry. They showed great interest in the printing industry. This is because the innovative development of printing technology has attracted the attention of the packaging industry. On the other hand, it is because packaging printing has always been at a lower level of printing technology.

One of the most significant changes in packaging and printing is the strong upward trend in flexographic printing, as evidenced by the increasing number of flexographic press manufacturers and accessory product manufacturers exhibiting at various trade shows. Another very clear phenomenon is that flexographic printing is undergoing a new round of innovation cycles, rather than a revolutionary transition, and its main innovation is the independence of the drive without shafts. Nearly all manufacturers of flexographic presses have adopted this new technology on their new presses. However, when the non-shaft drive system is gradually becoming the standard configuration on the large-scale flexo press, the narrow-width flexo press still uses the non-shaft drive in combination with the conventional long-axis drive.

In 1998, Windoeller & Hoelscher first introduced the Novoflex, a central impression cylinder type printing press equipped with a direct drive system. Nowadays, the Novoflex Cartoline flexo printing machine W&H specializes in folding carton printing in flexible packaging has only a shaftless drive. Its print length can be changed from 300 mm to 760 mm, and the print width is 1 050 mm. It is also equipped with WPM Jagenberg flat die-cutting die-cutting device with a die-cutting speed of 225 m/min. It can also be equipped with Schober's online Rotary die cutting device and VITS cut sheet or rewinding device. The flexo press has sold more than 20 units in Asia, Europe and the United States. W&H also recently introduced the Astraflex 10-color group CI flexographic press equipped with a shaftless drive system with a print width of 1,270 mm or 1,570 mm and an inking speed of 460 m/min, which has caused great interest in North America. . The 3/4 of the machine that has been sold is concentrated in the United States. Compared with the previous 8-color group flexo printer, the two additional color groups can meet more complex printing design requirements, facilitating spot color printing and printing. Light and other processes, which are the higher requirements for packaging printing in recent years. In addition, thanks to the use of a non-shaft drive system, it is also possible to clean, replace, and set unused color groups during the flexo printing process, thereby greatly reducing preparation time for the next print job.

Another hot spot for flexo printing is the widespread adoption of sleeve technology. Fischer & Krecke's 6-color CI flexo printer combines sleeve technology with a non-shaft drive and automatic register control system, which enables the printer's print-to-play conversion setup to take only 6 minutes. With the new bearing arrangement of the anilox roller and the printing cylinder, the bearing can be easily replaced without any special tools. By switching on the compressed air and opening the hydraulic control plate, the plate sleeve can be easily replaced. The flexo printing machine is equipped with a plate cylinder and a very thin sleeve on the plate cylinder mandrel, which reduces the sleeve cost and ensures smooth rotation in printing. In order to expand its scope of use, the device can use either an anilox roller sleeve or an ordinary anilox roller. At present, two such flexo equipment have been sold to Canada.

Sleeve technology can also be applied to a group printer. CMR's new Flexoprint, an Italian manufacturer of flexo presses, is equipped with a sleeve system from Rossini. The technique of mounting the plate on a sleeve is used on flexo printers with a width of more than 500 mm. Flexoprint is designed for printing paper, foil, and packaging films with a print speed of 300 m/min and a web width of 500 mm to 1 500 mm. Although everyone is talking about adopting the new technology of non-shaft drive, the main customers who are interested are from wide paper printers whose width is more than one meter wide. The narrow paper printers have no interest in repeated length adjustment. Not so big, the obstacle comes mainly from the price of the motor. It is believed that with the continuous increase in the sales volume of electric motors, it will inevitably bring about a drop in price, and non-shaft drive technology will also be promoted accordingly. Currently 40% of CMR's flexo presses still use conventional gear transmissions, but it is certain that the ratio will decrease year by year. CMR also recommends the use of Eltromat's automatic register control system on a 4- to 10-color flexo press. The customer generally accepts automatic register control, sleeve technology, and shaftless drive technology, but the key is how press manufacturers can accelerate this process.

Lemo Maschinenbau is also a manufacturer of flexo presses with shaftless drive technology. The latest model is the Multiflex 115 stacked 6-color flexo press with shaftless drive, which has a maximum print width of 2 000 mm and can be applied with solvent-based ink on 1 200 mm width, 15 μm thick HDPE film. Positive and negative three-color printing, water-based ink can also be used. Due to the use of non-shaft drive servo technology, the precision of the printing register is higher, and the printing quality is significantly improved compared to the traditional laminated presses. Although the print quality may not reach the print quality of the CI type flexo press, it fills the market outside the higher cost CI printing range. For example, the tubular prints that need to be printed on both sides need to ensure accurate front and back sides. Registered print jobs. Lemo's new flexo press has installed multiple machines worldwide.

Narrow web press manufacturers are striving to provide printers with printing machines that enable them to develop and build specific markets, such as the ability to print higher value-added trademarks, labels, lottery tickets, scratch cards and lamination New presses for die cutting, punching and hot pressing. Printing Specialities has launched a Webmaster 2400 flexo printer that meets this requirement. The printer is equipped with 7 printing color sets, 2 sets of upper paper roll systems, 12 UV lamps, a hot melt adhesive sizing device and die cutting device. Can complete the film, coating and holographic image cold foil anti-counterfeiting and other processes. Its patented anilox roll can be thick-coated and can be coated on ultra-thin papers from 24 to 25 g/m2. Webmaster's printing speed is 100 m/min, up to 150 m/min. Min.

Another manufacturer that can increase the added value of printing and provide solutions for anti-counterfeiting is Edale. The company's 250 mm wide modular design B250 flexographic press is specially designed for anti-counterfeiting printing, such as processing with watermark materials, personalized thermal security barcodes, erasable holograms and magnetic barcode processing, as well as die cutting. Punching and other post-processing. Because the printing process with the anti-falsification bar code in the printing material is usually much more complicated than the ordinary printing process, the equipment configuration requires multiple paper rolls for paper feeding, and can be used for composite processing, etc. The B250 flexo printing machine is able to complete this type of work better. India's printing equipment.

One of the most exciting things in the narrow-web rotary printing industry is that the packaging industry has started to use the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) widely for security purposes. Although it is only used in some of the more expensive products, it is very fast. Will be popularized into daily commodities. For this purpose, Edale designed and manufactured a flexo press dedicated to RFID printing. It can be multi-rolled, printed and used as a wireless receiving conductive ink and special labels for composite processing.

The Tag-it tag using RFID technology comes from Bielomatik. Its tag is embedded with a 2 in. × 4 in. size transponder. The film on the tag is equivalent to a flat antenna and can be obtained by printing. Its chip is only pin-point size, and within the three-foot sensor distance of reading and writing electromagnetic fields, data can be quickly and safely transmitted to the chip.

RFID smart labels are widely used to prevent counterfeiting of goods and documents, rapid bill processing, book lending, electronic certificates, medical reports, public transport tickets, and luggage tags. As a new electronic data type identification system, people in the industry predict that it will replace the traditional bar code system. The main obstacle to the promotion of RFID technology is the lack of a unified standard. Once a unified technical standard has been established, the popularization and application of RFID technology will come. (to be continued)