Flexo Technology
Delivering innovation in the flexo print industry
By Trevor Lowes, co-founder of Reproflex3. I
n a world where everyone is under pressure to reduce costs and create more efficiency, we have been focusing on innovating and creating modifications inside the print process, to help printers and converters make savings. For a number of years, we’ve concentrated on developing new flexographic screening solutions that create high impact graphics whilst reducing press set-up times and ink usage. The major challenge always lies in not compromising the print quality and staying true to the brand’s original design intent.
Building on the success of our award-winning ProjectBlue technology, we have developed Vortex. It is designed to be a soft impact solution for converters and printers because its advanced ink transfer system doesn’t require a specific anilox.
Vortex is capable of working with high volume aniloxes whilst metering the dot gain. We do this by configuring the dot structure to fit the customer’s current anilox set up. Vortex then manages the dot gain and increases the screen LPI for improved graphics and cleaner print. It uses up to 7 colours, minimising plate and ink changeovers, reducing waste and offering a consistency between print runs. Right now, we’re seeing rising energy and raw material costs, combined with a shift in consumer expectations on the back of the global Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, leading to more brand owners decorating their outer packaging to enhance the consumer experience and increase brand awareness.
Following a number of successful pilot projects inside the corrugated packaging industry with our print partners in the UK, Italy and USA, Vortex is gaining traction as a cost-effective solution. It has the potential to help our customers maintain and improve both the quality of their products and the efficiency of their operations. For many, Vortex will be a huge leap forwards in the kind of package they can now offer, all whilst using their existing equipment.
Whether it is brown box or multi-colour high quality graphics, Vortex allows post print graphics to be produced at higher screen levels
with superior solid coverage. Designs that would normally be printed using a pre-print or digital process can now be more cost effective and printed directly onto a corrugated flexo folder gluer. Vortex technology also enables brown box printers to achieve better ink coverage on their boxes due to how the ink is transferred from the plate surface.
For some time, we’ve been working hand-in- hand with our print partners ZDue, one of the largest corrugated plate producers in Italy, to optimise the screening to a point where we can take the anilox specification and combine it with the correct dot structure and cell surface pattern to fully optimise the print result. We develop the cell surface pattern to improve the density and ink trapping on water based corrugated. This brings a more flexible solution to the market. Using the plate screening and cell surface as a metering system, and by configuring the dot structure to fit the client’s current anilox configuration, we can manage the dot gain and increase the screen LPI for improved graphics and cleaner print.
Marco Mingozzi, general manager of ZDue, says Vortex is a game changing technology. He said: “Vortex is big news in the flexo process on both paper or corrugate. The technology is versatile and can be customised for each kind of substrate. There’s a Vortex for coated papers and a
Vortex for uncoated papers, a configuration for medium anilox roll volumes and an alternative configuration for high volumes of ink transfer. “With Vortex we have a specific solution for every need and the benefits are enormous. Each one can be described as a genuine money saver for converters. To give you an example, we have printed on a Celmacch machine, mounting anilox rolls of 7.5 cm3/sqm ink to conduct high quality image tests on coated and uncoated papers, with no anilox change.
“Furthermore, on coated papers we’ve printed with the dryers switched off and there were no issues at all. When you think each dryer unit consumes 50kw/h - you can imagine the energy and cost saving possibilities!”
The potential that our Vortex technology has in driving print quality for both corrugate as well as flexible converters has resulted in two prestigious EFIA Awards. Vortex won an EFIA Innovation award in 2020, followed by an EFIA Corrugated Promotion award in 2021.
Whilst our ProjectBlue screening technology remains the gold standard in flexographic print quality, it does require investment in press standardisation. Through Vortex, we use the existing infrastructure to deliver 175-LPI+ high definition screening, which offers great value for corrugation players who want to explore the possibilities of four-colour direct prints. In addition to the success we’re having in corrugate, we’re also seeing a shift in CI flexo. We have a client piloting Vortex in New Zealand right now. The trial was scheduled to run for eight hours; however the actual run time from start to finish was just four hours, with no stopping to clean plates or press downtime. In addition to the press efficiencies, the print quality was described as ‘exceptional’, with the results of the trial leading to immediate discussions around converting more jobs to Vortex.
Xwww.reproflex3.com
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February 2022
www.convertermag.com
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