18th March 2015
Newsletter
ISSN 1868-9779 • 24. Jahrgang
TRESU‘s new light-weight carbon fibre chamber doctor blade system
Light-weight carbon fibre chamber
TRESU Group has launched a
programme of lightweight
carbon fibre chamber doctor
blades, offering improved
chemical resistance, optimised
flow and safe, easy handling
in all flexo printing situations.
The carbon fibre composition gives
the chamber high-strength qualities, enabling a relatively low
weight of between 2.4kg and 4.1kg
per linear metre, and thus easing
chamber exchange. Inside the chamber, a top-coated ink-repellent surface offers extra protection against
ink and detergents with high and
low pH-values and ensures efficient,
thorough cleaning after job completion. Furthermore, curved inner
surfaces maximise volume and facilitate controlled discharge. The
chamber’s design also enables ink
and coating circulation in relatively
low volumes.
The units offer pressure-controlled
ink and coating circulation with
manual or closed-loop control sys-
Index
Light-weight carbon fibre
chambre...1
KBA very pleased with
Hunkeler Innovationdays
...2
Printed Electronics for the
Label Printer
...2
Xeikon cuts Gem of an
agreement with Sapphire
...3
Drewsen Spezialpapiere enters
the market for greaseproof
barrier papers
...3
TRESU launches Carbon Fibre Chamber Doctor Blade
tems, like the TRESU F10 iCon Ink
Control System. They feature
TRESU’s patented seal system, preventing leakage, and stainless steel
blades whose clamping system enables one of the fastest possible
changeovers in the industry, of
within two minutes.
The enclosed environment, resulting from the seal and precise blade
positioning ensures pressure and
flow rate are maintained at desired
levels without manual intervention.
This stops air contaminating the
chamber and results in foam free
transfer of ink / coating directly to
the anilox cells, also at fast speeds.
This in turn ensures a clean, blister-free printed image with fast drying characteristics, better reflection
and higher gloss values, whether
on paper or film. The enclosed
chamber also prevents solvents from
escaping and protects the ink from
degradation due to exposure to the
atmosphere.
Because of its simplicity and high
level of automation, the TRESU carbon fibre chamber can be cleaned
and prepared without being removed from the press, shortening
makeready times.
Henrik Kristensen, vice president,
TRESU Ancillary, comments: “Thanks
to its time-saving advantages, optimized fluid control and resilience,
the TRESU carbon fibre chamber offers a long-term solution for high
productivity, low ownership costs
and uniform quality.”
The carbon fibre programme comprises variants, with pneumatic
(P-Line) or eccentric (E-Line) clamping systems that allow changeover
of stainless steel or plastic blades
within two minutes. The CFC P-Line,
for water-based corrugated, tissue,
flexible packaging and specialist
applications up to 6000 mm wide,
is at 2.4kg / linear metres the lightest of the three chambered doctor
blades. The CFC E-Line is suited for
prepress - world of print EXPRESS
water, UV and solvent digital primer
coating, napkin, tissue and flexible
packaging applications up to 2000
mm wide. The Ceraflex E-Line,
P-Line or S-Line features a plasma
electrolytic oxidation and ceramic
topcoat for optimum corrosion-resistance and is suited for all flexo
applications up to 3500 mm wide.
All units are retrofittable with all
TRESU’s currently available chamber doctor blade systems.
KBA very pleased with
Hunkeler Innovationdays
Even though KBA was unable to
show a RotaJET press live in operation at the Hunkeler Innovationdays in Lucerne due to the space
available, the company was extremely pleased with the amount
of visitors and talks at its stand
during the four-day digital printing
fair. The stand featured 89 and
168cm-tall paper reels printed on
the new KBA RotaJET L and RotaJET VL that symbolised the inkjet
presses’ enormous range of applications in classic market segments,
such as book, advertising and publications printing as well as further
industrial application fields, like
decorative and packaging printing.
Interest in the application-specific
solutions for various priorities in
new markets within the high-volume inkjet printing segment was
therefore great.
As an experienced press manufacturer with an extensive product
portfolio KBA is also trusted in the
digital printing sector with mastering large web widths and challenging substrates. This is reflected in
the partnership with Hewlett Packard for the development of the HP
T1100 Simplex Color inkjet web
press that has a maximum web
width of 2.8m (9.18ft) designed for
the corrugated packaging market
and the delivery of a KBA RotaJET
VL with a web width of 1.68m (5.5ft)
to a leading German printing firm.
Potential new digital printing users
in particular value the level of flexibility offered by the modular RotaJET L (web widths from 895 to
1,300mm/35 to 51in) which can also
be upgraded after the initial installation.
Printed Electronics for
the Label Printer
Packaging has been a prime driver in
the development of printed electronics, from RFID to QR codes and other
digitally ‘readable’ data. The printing expertise, specialist materials, and
conductive inks required to reliably
create these ‘intelligent’ functions
have long been a specialty of the label production chain - an extended
value chain which is supported by a
single umbrella organisation in Europe, FINAT, the international association for the self-adhesive label industry. Proactive participation in educating and supporting its member
companies as well as the industry in
general in newly-developing territories such as the printed electronics
arena is an ongoing focus for FINAT,
as innovation continues apace. A recent members-only expert webinar
on printed electronics provided a
valuable update on existing applications and potential opportunities for
printers in the narrow-web flexo market - not just in packaging or labels.
Presented by Chris Jones of Novalia,
a conductive print and capacitive
touch specialists based in the UK, the
webinar encouraged label industry
delegates to think ‘out of the box’.
“By combining extant mainstream
equipment, consumables, and expertise, they can create state-of-the-art
printed electronics that, in addition
to scannability, bring the dimensions
of touch, sound and vision into play
to add real additional functionality
or even ‘must have’ desirability to a
product or its packaging,” explains
Mr. Jones. “Today, as well as printed
circuit boards and transistors, print
can deliver a variety of other mainstream applications - including lighting, LEDs, photovoltaics, and even
skincare patches, and features
strongly in automotive, aviation, architectural and military applications
and in pharmaceuticals and healthcare, toys, music, and of course brand
protection and anti-counterfeiting.”
In a world where the majority of the
population has a smartphone, the
2
opportunities to link up such instruments to interact, via printed electronics, with what would appear to
be simple printed posters or other
items is now attracting more and
more interest internationally. Outdoor advertising and displays are
good examples. As part of the launch
for their new Flavour Shots herbs and
spices range, Schwartz used a ‘sonic
poster’ featuring Novalia’s capacitive
touch technology. The paper poster,
when touched, plays music wirelessly
through a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone or tablet. Touching the artwork on different spots triggers musical chords that are meant to add an
extra level of engagement with the
new Schwartz products. It is conductive inks that turn the surface area of
the paper into an interactive interface. Adding new dimensions such as
sound or movement to display print
is certainly an innovative way to enhance a consumer’s perception of,
and interest in, a product.
There are also creative examples from
the extended world of packaging Mr.
Jones illustrates: “For example, a box
of tissues that featured a playable piano keyboard on the side of the packaging, and multiple-pack secondary
packaging for beers and cigarettes
that also carried special printed
‘touch’ and ‘connectivity’ features.
What consumer could resist the added
value of such packaging?”
On a more serious note, pharmaceutical and healthcare applications add
user-friendliness to alert a patient to
the need to take his blister-packed
medication - and enable the pharmacist/dispenser to check, thanks to a
microprocessor in the pack, that the
drugs were in fact taken at the right
time in the right quantities.
The winning features of flexo print
For volume production of printed
electronics, narrow-web label printers are particularly well positioned as
providers. “While screen and gravure
have their place in certain application areas,” Mr. Jones explains, “flexo
has proved itself the most attractive
print process for the job. Its combination of good print speeds and ease
of repeatability; the high, consistent
application weight of wet ink that
flexo achieves; and the good range
prepress - world of print EXPRESS
of available flexible, inexpensive substrates (paper, PP, PET), constitute an
ideal combination. The conductive
pigments themselves represent an
additional consideration for the flexo
printer - both in practical and cost
terms - and, additionally, drying the
ink is a key factor. Currently, evaporative solvent and water-based drying provide the desired characteristics. UV ink curing remains a challenge, because at this time it does
not pack the ink particles together
sufficiently. The process of printing
conductive inks embraces, in summation, anilox specification, production
speed, drying, and press consumables
- all of which can affect the ‘sheet resistance’ of the conductive inks - the
characteristic which is at the heart of
a good result.”
“There is certainly a considerable and
growing interest from narrow-web
label printers in extending the range
of specialist capabilities they can offer to brand owners. Their skills base
and pressroom equipment can enable
them to deliver printed items incorporating printed electronics in a variety of creative forms that go well
beyond traditional functional/industrial applications and conventional
label print,” Mr. Jones concludes.
Xeikon cuts Gem of an
agreement with Sapphire
Xeikon, an innovator in digital color
printing technology has signed an
agreement with Sapphire, the leading Indian supplier of digital print
solutions to support its expansion in
the Indian document printing market. The agreement, signed at the
brand new Xeikon Asia Technology
Center, will focus on the commercial
printing and publishing sectors as
well as the photo, wall décor and
creative markets.
The portfolio Sapphire represents
includes Xeikon’s 8000 Series digital
color presses. They feature high precision LED-array imaging technology,
which combines true 1200 dpi resolution and 4-bit per spot color depth,
to deliver the finest commercial print
quality available on the market today. In addition, the Xeikon 8000 Series presses offer unmatched format
flexibility, with a media width of
512mm (20.2 inches) and unlimited
print length. The presses print on
both sides of the substrate simultaneously and can handle monthly duty
cycles of up to 10 million pages.
The 8000 Series presses are a fundamental element in Xeikon’s Document Production Suite, a fully integrated solution for the production
of direct marketing material of virtually any size or format, ready for
mailing or short-run high-quality
transactional printing.
Sapphire will also offer Xeikon’s Wall
Decoration Suite. It allows cost-efficient production of high-quality wall
decorations for commercial, retail
and residential purposes. This shortrun friendly ‘all-in-one’ solution addresses the increasing demand for
more customized and personalized
print jobs and enables the production of a small roll of finished wallpaper from a large roll of paper. It
integrates four major components a Xeikon digital press printing on
the widest media range available,
with dedicated workflows and software, application-specific toners and
process optimization tools plus preand post-press equipment.
“We pride ourselves on our customer
centric approach, whether it is providing a trained operator with the
machine or supporting the initial installation for the first couple of
weeks,” states Sapphire’s Vikram Saxena, Chief Operating Officer at Sapphire Graphic Solutions. “It is this
approach to customer support that
has resulted in the success of our
business from its inception. We are
delighted to be able to work with
Xeikon and share with our customers how the large portfolio of Xeikon’s digital printing solutions can
help them grow their business and
stay ahead of the competition.”
Bent Serritslev, who was recently appointed Managing Director Xeikon
Asia Pacific (ASPAC) to help support
its fast-paced growth in this dynamic
region comments: “Sapphire has
earned an unrivalled reputation for
its service, support and sales of digital printing solutions and we are delighted to be working together in
such an exciting and vibrant region.
We are looking forward to presenting solutions that can help Indian
3
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print production operations improve
their production capabilities and enhance their service offering.”
Drewsen Spezialpapiere
enters the market for
greaseproof barrier papers
The current range encompasses
grades with a high (Kit 7-9), medium
(Kit 4-6) or low (Kit 1- 3) grease resistance, as well as bespoke customer-specific products. Probarrier is currently available in a range of substances from 40 - 160 g/m2. Drewsen’s
product range of high-quality security papers, technical base papers
and graphical papers has now expanded into packaging papers.
MASTHEAD
published by:
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Online: http://www.worldofprint.com
Publisher: Dipl.-Kfm. Andreas Blömer
Editor: Daniela Blömer
Advertising Manager: Oliver Göpfert
Production: Blömer Medien GmbH
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