LaserFlex (I)

At the same time as LaserFlex was established, the company began trial production of DuPont's new Cyrel® ITR system. In the flexographic printing industry, experts generally believe that "digital technology" and "cylindrical continuous sleeve" technology will ultimately determine the future and future fate of the flexographic version. A controversial hot topic is: "In the long live market, what kind of technology should be used? Is it the choice of direct plate making (CTP) technology, or choose cylindrical photopolymer plate it?" According to the principle of imaging Differently, it is also possible to divide the CTP plate into many kinds; and the cylindrical photopolymer plate also includes several different technologies, such as direct plate making (PoS), continuous photopolymer printing sleeve (CPPS), etc. on the sleeve. Wait. I. PoS Technology Enters the Market Mature Period From the printed matter obtained with cylindrical photosensitive polymer plates, it is curious that, so far, neither PoS nor CPPS have been able to occupy the market on a large scale. However, there are many professional plate-making staff who have chosen the CPPS technology that has long been known in the market. LaserFlex plans to invest more effort in PoS, and they believe that PoS technology is more efficient. UWE BOGL said: "It is undeniable that the CPPS is indeed a very good product, but its price is relatively high and its cost is almost the same as a gravure cylinder. The cost of PoS technology is between CTP and CPPS. Because of the price advantage, they have a certain market scope, which makes them particularly attractive to flexo customers." LaserFlex hired a group of employees who were passionate and passionate about new technology, in order to enable PoS. Occupy the market and realize mass production as soon as possible, all employees of the company have made unremitting efforts to this end. DuPont Cyrel's ITR production system (ITR) was purchased in January 2000. The ITR system can expose, rinse, dry, and post-process the sleeve. It plays an important role in LaserFlex's plan. UWE BOGL said: "If the whole process of PoS production can be as smooth and perfect as the ITR system." Second, a complete system composed of various components in order to ensure quality, production efficiency and performance of PoS plates All can meet the needs of the market, not only to install a set of appropriate sleeve processing equipment, but also need to form a complete system under the cooperation of other equipment. The various equipments involved in the actual production of LaserFlex Inc. mainly include the following: 1. A Cyrel ITR Microflex PreMounter pre-installation system, which is produced by DuPont, after the original plate is back exposed, with the help of The system mounts the plate to the sleeve. 2. A set of Cyrel Digtal Imager CDI (Digital Imaging) equipment with double-beam laser system exposure imaging. 3, Cyrel ITR processing system, the system consists of several modules that can complete the main exposure, rinse, drying and post-processing and post-exposure tasks. III. Timing of Seamless Photopolymer Plate Technology Before the investment direction was finalized, the decision makers of LaserFlex paid close attention to the various systems currently on the market, paying particular attention to the current packaging printing in these systems. The adaptability of the trend, some of the world's leading brands of product manufacturers are trying to improve the level of their own product packaging, to achieve higher quality standards. Not only in the field of flexible packaging, folding carton market is no exception, judging from the current situation, in the folding carton market, although offset printing still occupies a dominant position, but in recent years flexo printing in the field of folding carton development faster and faster. UWE BOGL believes that if digital printing plates and seamless sleeve technology are used, the flexo printing process may surpass offset printing. These printing plates and sleeves are prerequisites and guarantees, for example, ensuring the required registration accuracy so that the anti-white characters in four-color images can be accurately printed. LaserFlex has already conducted production tests with PoS plates, and the facts prove that it is. On the contrary, the effect of manual loading is worse. Fourth, there is a certain defect in the manual plate loading. When a flat printing plate is mounted on the surface of the cylinder, the printing plate is bent along the cylindrical roller, but the deformation of the solid part and the halftone area on the printing plate However, they are not the same, and these deviations cannot be corrected, so it is impossible to accurately register the plates. This is also a defect in the manual loading. However, if the PoS technology is adopted, not only the high registration accuracy can be guaranteed, but also a great leap in the quality of the mixed text, there is no need to separate the halftone image from the line image, because the PoS In the technology, the printing plate is installed first and then plate-washed, so that the height of the halftone area and the line area can be ensured to be uniform. In flexo printing, images printed using PoS technology look more realistic (assuming standard four-color printing inks are also used). If you use an effective color management system at the same time, you can greatly reduce the number of spot colors, so that in the printing process, there may be one or several color groups in an eight-color printing press or a ten-color printing press. When you are idle, you can print another job at the same time. 5. When using the traditional flexographic version of the “Kissed Press” graphic and mixed manuscript, the minimum dot value on the printed matter has reached about 10%. If there is an image and text (line) at the same time on a printing plate, In order to ensure that the printed lines are clearly visible, the minimum dot is usually 15%. However, if PoS technology is used, the dot gain rate will be greatly reduced, and a small dot network of 5% can be printed. This phenomenon can be explained by the loading process: During the process of installing the printing plate, the deformation of the solid area on the printing plate along the roller axis is slightly larger than the halftone area. Therefore, the height of the solid area on the printing plate must be The height of the halftone portion is slightly lower than that of the halftone portion. In order to compensate for this, it is necessary to appropriately increase the printing pressure. However, the increase in the printing pressure will inevitably cause serious dot enlargement. Many companies also agree with LaserFlex's point of view, and also believe that PoS technology can apply the “kissing pressure” technique to the mixed regions, and even the plastic film printing companies, cigarette paper and carton printing companies are no exception. LaserFlex has experimented with a variety of different configurations and configurations of machines (such as center-imprinted, stacked or machine-type printing presses), providing valuable industry experience. VI. Benefits and Benefits for Printers A very significant feature is that in the short months after the adoption of PoS technology by LaserFlex, the information returned from the printing company was basically the same. One user had compared the PoS plate with the traditional digital CTP flexo, although in both cases the same polymer-based media was used, but it turns out that using PoS plates can make Printing pressure is more flexible and ensures prints are more consistent throughout the printing process. What's more, PoS technology shortens the debugging time of the printing press by about 25%. One of the reasons may be the application of its mesh registration system, which can ensure accurate plate loading and laser imaging at the same position, enabling debugging time. Shorten 60% to 75%. In the CTP technology, the main advantage is to improve the quality of printed matter, and PoS technology can not only improve the quality of the product, but also can reduce the production cost, that is, the use of PoS technology can achieve the purpose of killing two birds with one stone and two birds. The advantages of the sleeve technology can be summed up in the following points: 1. It is easy to pre-plate the printing plate, save the plate loading time, and increase the production efficiency. 2. Reduced production costs. 3, the system has high precision and high product quality. 4, more flexible. 5, convenient storage, small footprint. In order to enable printers to realize this potential cost reduction, UWE BOGL made the following recommendations: 1. Record downtime due to improper loading. 2. Calculate the total costs and expenses of the assembly department separately because these costs do not occur in the case of using PoS plates. In addition, using PoS technology has other benefits, such as the printer can continue to use their existing sleeve. Moreover, after use, it can be easily uninstalled and the next job will be prepared immediately. Moreover, since the existing printing conditions can be continued, all plate systems and packaging structures can be fully utilized. However, if the CPPS process is used, it is subject to various restrictions, and the secondary use takes a long time and costs high.