The next big thing in flexo?

UV inkjet offers a number of advantages over electrophotography (EP), such as removing the need for surface treatment of material or a conditioned working environment. The latest and perhaps the greatest threat to EP based technology is the combination of UV flexo and UV inkjet. A possible scenario could also be a label press operator in a normal print shop, printing onto material already in stock. Jobs on the press computer, from prepress ready to print sounds great; however, UV flexo is being used when it out-performs UV inkjet for price or quality. Coldfoil, rotary screen and converting are all applied in-line when this is the most cost effective method.

Interesting opportunities arise from the possibility of combining UV flexo and UV inkjet. Special colours, opaque colours and large solid areas are all jobs where UV flexo and UV inkjet can complement each other and offer savings for the printer. Other advantages of this combination are: excellent ink adhesion; better light fastness; large format prints; no need for varnish to ensure scratch resistance; high density inks; and non-contact printing, expanding the range of printable material and reducing maintenance requirements.

The press can also be considered as two machines in one: a high speed flexo press in the day shift and a pure UV inkjet press in the night, with no need for colour adjustment.

Last but not least, this combination of digital printing and in-line, full rotary converting does not have the inherent finishing bottlenecks associated with higher printing speeds, now common among digital printing systems.

We have been producing labels around flexo in combination with other technologies for many years. More recently, UV flexo has been the mainstream, complemented by rotary screen and coldfoil as the preferred embellishment. However, with the advent of digital printing, many new opportunities have risen from the handful of different technologies.

The first to be embraced by the narrow web industry was EP, but only from a very few suppliers. While it is still popular today, its position as the preferred digital technology is now challenged by UV inkjet.

Jakob Landberg is sales and marketing director of Nilpeter.