Development trend of the hottest gravure cylinder

Gravure drum development trend

for many years, the rotary gravure drum has been made of steel or aluminum, with little change. The roller base of gravure cylinder is also considered to be no problem

in the winter of 1985, McKinley M. Luther of gravure Technology Association pointed out some technical progress made in gravure driving device, ink supply, direct digital imaging, laser imaging and engraving in an article entitled "Drum: a big problem of gravure printing", briefly mentioned gravure sleeve and winding printing plate, and predicted that polymer materials that can be engraved or exposed may replace copper

problems that must be solved

at that time, Mr. Luther realized that until 1985, the insiders had not taken any measures to improve the roller base of the drum to improve its cost-effectiveness. When it helped to make dental molds, flexographic printing technology was just beginning to seize the dominant market of gravure printing technology. Nowadays, in the view of most gravure printers, the roller base of gravure cylinder is still the least problem. At the same time, because the packaging printing cost of flexographic printing is lower than gravure printing, and the quality is also good, flexographic printing continues to seize the gravure printing market

at present, an important problem we are facing is to reduce the replacement time of live parts of printing machines. The key is to reduce the weight of gravure cylinder. The bulky rotary gravure cylinder brings great inconvenience to the logistics management and service work, making the storage and transportation costs remain high. In addition, the bulky gravure cylinder increases the time, labor and cost of replacing live parts

at present, gravure printing cylinders with high cost-effectiveness have been available. However, this kind of gravure drum cannot be separated from new supporting equipment, so that the sleeve drum, which is light and easy to handle, has become a common production tool rather than a novel decoration. Otherwise, it will be difficult to make continuous progress

the new drum is not an engraving drum plated with copper or chromium, but a rotating image carrier with specific operation functions. The light sleeve type roller can play a certain role, but it is not enough to change the competitive strength of gravure printers. There are still many things to be done

gravure printers, cylinder engraving processing centers, printing machine manufacturers and users of gravure products and paper products should strengthen cooperation and jointly seek new gravure equipment and gravure cylinders with lighter weight and higher efficiency

although engineering polymers have been widely used in military, aerospace and automobile manufacturing, metal strength is still higher than plastic in the eyes of ordinary people; Plastic is suitable for making toys, picnic spoons and other general supplies, but not for making rollers. Therefore, when describing the new roller, we decided to use the term engineering polymer instead of the name plastic. The performance of engineering polymers is comparable to that of metals

the light polymer rotary image cutting (new roller, translator's note) that has been launched at present helps to shorten the replacement time of live parts, reduce the operation cost, and use it after greatly reducing the freight and storage. This light image carrier is particularly suitable for sleeve printing machines (such as shaftless printing machines). If the sleeve printing machine adopts light polymer image cutting, the drum with a face width of 38 inches can be replaced in less than 5 minutes without using special handling tools

related services here is the light gravure drum produced by

rotag company, which has the following characteristics:

* the single shaft can fully meet the professional standard of graphic reproduction

* it is not corroded by common packaging inks

* it adopts the electrostatic auxiliary ink transfer device

* it has the required stretching, Compression strength

* can be re engraved

* size can be changed

* can be repaired

* can be combined with existing metal rollers

* install concentric measuring device

* weight is at least 50% less than metal rollers

* cost is lower than metal rollers (copper is not used)

* it can be used on printing machines with the same or larger width

* the cost of air transportation is relatively low

the rotag roller is made of injection molding reinforced thermosetting engineering polymer and is electroplated and polished. The total number of rotag rollers has reached tens of thousands, and the installation width is 7 Inch, on gravure printing machine with cylinder circumference of inch. The substrate includes a film with a thickness of 1/2 mil (1 mil = 0.001 inch) and a cardboard with high wet strength. The printing machines used include SCHIAVI, Champlain, uteco, rotomec, d.c.m., chestnut, Chambon, Andreotti, c.m.r., and then other brands of printing machines. Sometimes the chemical direct engraving method is used to engrave the drum, and sometimes the Helio, Ohio and daetwyler engraving systems are used

the configuration requirements of each printing machine can be met through the design of drum direction. Some printing machines (such as d.c.m. printing machines) are equipped with sleeves with straight holes to divide the head into oblique head (120 degrees) and right angle (90 degrees) head rollers. Such printing machines need to use molded inserts. Other printing presses use cones more often to position and transmit power. The above rollers, which were originally made of steel, can now be molded with reinforced engineering polymers. The prospect is very bright. (US) chelyu Adams