Mr. Wilfried Koopman, printing director at Stork Prints, believes that in the current market environment where job turnover is accelerating and short-run jobs are increasing, direct laser engraving plates can greatly enhance the competitiveness of label processors.
Direct laser engraving is a fully integrated, two-step process that can be completed without film, a plate-making process, which is an important milestone for the label printing industry. The pre-press process is by far the most cumbersome part of the entire printing process. Direct laser engraving technology greatly simplifies the pre-press process and greatly improves the efficiency of this process. This also allows printers to respond quickly to the market and provide faster services. More importantly, this rapid plate-making process can be suitable for flexo, rotary screen printing, letterpress and waterless offset printing.
The basic principle of direct laser engraving
The laser engraving process is a sleeve plate imaging process. The printing plate is wrapped on the steel drum body, and then rotates at a very high speed (up to 2400rpm). While the cylinder rotates at high speed, it will move along the horizontal axis and pass through the laser engraving device to expose the entire printing plate to a high-intensity CO2 laser beam. The printing plate absorbs the energy of the laser beam to cause thermal decomposition of the printing plate material in the engraved area. After engraving, the printing plate can be directly used for printing after rapid processing.
The professional 3D software makes it easy for the operator to control the dot formation to ensure high accuracy of the graphic area, including the slope of the dot formation, the height of the relief and the size of the bottom of the dot.
This plate-making process is suitable for a variety of materials, including polymers, EPDM (triple ethylene-propylene rubber (including dicyclopentadiene)) rubber sleeves, and photosensitive emulsions for electroformed nickel mesh rollers.
In the plate-making process of flexographic printing, relief printing and waterless offset printing, the non-graphic areas are ablated by the laser beam, and the graphic areas are completely retained. In the production of the rotary screen printing plate, the material in the graphic area is ablated, so that the mesh opening is formed. This is also the basis for ensuring good ink transfer during the printing process.
Advantages of direct laser engraving
Direct laser engraving has the following advantages:
High production efficiency-the direct laser engraving process is greatly simplified, and the time required is only half of the traditional engraving process. The production of printing plates for repeat orders only needs to upload files-so the entire preparation process is only a few minutes.
Excellent printing plate quality-the perfect printing plate size means the best ink transfer and high contrast of fine line drafts. Therefore, small barcodes and text do not need to change size in pursuit of clarity and scanning ability. The embossed base makes the dot expansion rate of the high-gloss sculpture area smaller. Unsupported outlets can also ensure dimensional stability after a long period of wear. The design of the dot relief can prevent the accumulation of dust in non-graphic areas.
The quality of the printing plate is more stable-the two printing sleeves made before and after can be completely consistent.
Longer service life-no expansion / deflation of the printing plate. It can also realize seamless printing plate.
The cost of plate making is lower-no development and long-term drying is required. The only cost consumed is the energy consumption of the system operation, a very small amount of CO2 gas and the cost of the plate sleeve itself. The compact structure of the system means more space can be saved.
Good environmental performance-Similarly, no chemicals and UV light are used in the entire plate-making process, only a small amount of water and CO2. This means that no waste that limits emissions will be produced.
Quality advantage
At present, there are a series of engraving devices on the market-wide-format engraving machines are mainly aimed at the field of flexible plates, catering to the needs of wide-format and narrow-format suppliers. The professional narrow-width engraving system can be used for the production of printing plates such as flexo, letterpress, waterless offset printing and rotary screen printing, providing a complete solution that can meet all kinds of pre-press production. The professional rotary screen device is a good choice for large format users.
Overall, the printer can fully control the production process of the printing plate, keep the cost within a reasonable range, and ensure the perfect quality and stability of the printing plate. With the greatly shortened pre-press production cycle, printers can more flexibly cope with market challenges, because now the industry's delivery time has become the main means of competition.
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