On gravure printing in the hottest ink industry

Ink industry -- Talking about gravure printing (middle)

Mr. Todd of Sun Chemical ink company said: "When the number of prints reaches millions, gravure printing has always been the preferred printing method. The main advantages of gravure printing are high quality of long print and stable color. The higher front-end operating costs, including drum production and proofing costs, can be recovered by increasing the number of prints per hour under the fixed printing speed and coil width. The prepress cost is fixed, and the larger the number of prints, the lower the cost of single sheet printing."

Mr. impastado said: "The advantages and disadvantages of gravure printing are obvious. The main advantage of gravure printing is the high accuracy of image reproduction, and the printing effect is equal to that of photos. The biggest disadvantage of gravure printing itself is the high cost of short version printing. In the past 10 years, gravure printing has made great progress in reducing the cost of short version, but because the number of single printing continues to decline, gravure printing has no competitive advantage in cost compared with other printing methods."

Mr. bill weicher, the development manager of gravure printing ink published by flint ink company, said: "the advantage of gravure printing is still long edition printing. As long as the required consumables are used and the general printing operation standards are followed, a good printing reproduction effect can be obtained. The disadvantage of gravure printing is reflected in short edition printing."

feasibility of short edition printing

it is generally believed that gravure printing is only suitable for long edition printing. Generally, it can be brushed more than 100000 times, while flexo printing is suitable for short edition printing. Gravure printers do not agree with this view. Mr. kozi said: "The above view is related to the cost of replacing pictures and texts. Customers often require to print promotional labels, sometimes only need to change the address on the label, and think that the cost of gravure cylinder is very high compared with other printing methods. The flexo printing industry spared no effort to exaggerate this weakness, but in fact, the cost gap between rotary gravure printing and flexo printing is very small. The gravure cylinder engraving and processing industry has greatly reduced the internal processing cost, making gravure printing and flexo printing The cost gap between is shrinking rapidly. "

Mr. pat Kailin, vice president of production management of NORDENIA USA, said: "The above view is incorrect. In the past 10 years, people in flexo printing have been saying that the quality of flexo printing is almost as good as that of gravure printing. The fact is that the cost of first-class flexo printing equipment is as high as that of gravure printing; the cost of gravure printing cylinder is not much higher than that of first-class flexo printing plate and grain transfer ink roller. In terms of printing quality, first-class flexo printing quality is still not as good as that of gravure printing."

time control is of great significance to gravure printers.

Mr. Koch said: "in 1994, American packaging companies adopted smed (changing molds in one minute) Technology. Before that, we thought our production efficiency was very high, and the preparation time for machine adjustment was the same in the industry, so there was nothing to be improved. Later, we changed our attitude, adopted new technology, and achieved unexpected good results, reducing the preparation for machine adjustment on all equipment by 50%

in addition, American packaging companies have also invested a lot of money in equipment transformation, trying not to use various tools and replacing them with quick clamping devices. Mr. kozi said, "we believe that as long as the replacement time of live parts is required between different design schemes, there is an opportunity for improvement."

ink manufacturers also believe that short gravure printing has a bright future. Mr. weicher said: "In the past, economic benefits dominated the long and short gravure printing, but now, due to the adoption of digital front-end technology, the preparation speed of machine adjustment is accelerated, the proofing machine is no longer used, and the automation of rollers and printing equipment is greatly improved. Therefore, the short version gravure printing recycled plastic granulator is also a major energy consumer in China, and it can also achieve better economic benefits. The further improvement of the stability of paper and ink will certainly reduce the range of changes and speed up the debugging speed. There are It helps to determine the printing color and improve the replacement speed of live parts. "

Mr. impastado said: "Gravure printing has always been more suitable for long-term printing, because the cost of gravure printing machine is high. Therefore, the cost must be shared in the production process of long-term printing. The gravure cylinder with higher cost can only be used for long-term printing to achieve better economic benefits. Due to the long time of machine adjustment, the ratio of machine adjustment time to printing time is reasonable only when long-term printing is carried out. 4.1 linear scanning is relatively simple: improve the short-term gravure printing Competitive technological progress will be reflected in prepress and printing equipment. "

Mr. Mullen said: "Recently, some progress has been made in using rapid engraving equipment to shorten the processing time of gravure cylinder, improve electroplating efficiency, and effectively use digital text to adopt traditional additive materials to manufacture large components and proofing technology, which has greatly reduced the cost and further improved the competitiveness of gravure short version. At the same time, gravure machine manufacturers are also designing new equipment to minimize the preparation time for machine adjustment and improve gravure productivity. The above improvements Measures are particularly important in packaging and printing, because the packaging operation time of gravure printing machine is not as long as that of publishing and printing. "