In the situation where corrugated board production lines and single-sided machines are quite popular, the competition in the carton industry is shifting to the quality of printing. Improving the quality of carton printing has been used by carton manufacturers as an important means to increase competitiveness and market share. There are three methods for printing carton printing: flexo printing, screen printing, and offset printing (laying). Among them, flexo printing and screen printing are the most common.

Flexo plates include hand-engraved rubber plates and photosensitive flexo plates. The hand-engraved rubber plate is a natural rubber plate added with a filler, and has long dominated the country due to its low cost. But now it is no longer competitive because it cannot meet market demand. This traditional technology has been used less and less.

The photosensitive resin flexographic plate, referred to as the flexographic plate, is a photopolymer similar to a sandwich, with a protective layer on the top, a photosensitive resin in the middle, and a support film on the bottom. As long as there is a qualified photographic film, a high-quality copy plate can be obtained by a process of exposure, rinsing, de-bonding, and drying on a flexographic platemaking machine. This plate hardness is available between Shore 35 and 70. Can accurately design the original manuscript, copy text, lines is easy. And copying complex patterns, bar codes, and color-printing continuous patterns are simply not possible with the rubber plate.

Carton printing involves seven aspects of paper, board, design, plate making, printing machinery, ink, and other materials. The vast majority of manufacturers of corrugated cartons are equipped with home-made plate making equipment. The purpose of this article is to discuss how to make a high-quality flexo plate on a domestic platemaking machine after the design process is completed. The domestically-manufactured equipment with the largest sales volume in China are mainly brands such as Henan, Jiangsu, and Shanghai. Among them, the maximum price of Henan Tianma's production and sales is relatively higher, while the other plate-making equipment has a lower price, but the production process is simple, and it is still unable to meet the special requirements of customers.

Here's a brief introduction of the TMD-762 flexographic platesetter produced by Henan Tianma:

First, the main technical features of the structure and appearance of the lithograph machine:

1. The four processes of exposure, flushing, de-bonding and drying are completed in one machine. In order to make high-quality exposure possible, the aircraft has an electronic monitoring system.

2, all the flexographic production program completed by the operation panel. The operation panel involves time and temperature critical data and is controlled by microcomputer components. The data is accurate and accurate.

3, fine brush, good stiffness, can make 100 lines / inch carton color dot version and more detailed lines and trumpet text.

4, the whole machine components and complex surface processed by the United States CNC machining center, the process is reasonable, high precision, long life cycle.

Second, the operating procedures

1. After the pycnometer has passed the test, add an accurate solution for the bath.

2. Turn on the power supply, the voltage is 200V, the power is 5KW, the wire is 6 square meters copper cord.

3. After the LED luminescence test, confirm that the UV lamp is fully lit, and then enter the exposure tray, put on the flexible plate that is bonded with the film, re-evacuate the membrane, and vacuum-pump it seven times. Close the exposure drawer for accurate main exposure and back exposure.

4. Attach the exposed flexible media to the moving plate with double-sided tape and cover the cover. According to different requirements, determine the washing time. During winter washing, the bath temperature was set to 25C.

5. Use the spray gun to clearly bind the resin particles on the plate, and blot the liquid on the plate with a lint-free paper towel or nylon towel.

6, put in the drying oven for drying, drying temperature is 60C, time is about 60min.

7. Place the exposure drawer for post-exposure.

8, put in addition to the sticky drawer for optical detackification. The plate making process is all over

Third, compared with similar imported equipment

1, There is still a gap in automation. Sometimes it is necessary to add artificial auxiliary actions.

2. There is also a gap in environmental protection devices. Need to add auxiliary equipment, such as exhaust fans.

3. Some sensors are missing. If the viscosity of the wash plate is determined, it cannot be alarmed randomly and it needs to be determined with a pycnometer.

In summary, it can be seen that some gaps can be overcome artificially. The equipment needed to be added is only a few hundred dollars, but the quality of the printing plate is in one grade and the price is equivalent to 25-30% of the imported equipment of the same type.

Fourth, special tips

In order to obtain a high-quality printing plate, the operator should pay attention to the following:

1. Select a high-quality printing plate. At present, there are various kinds of plate materials in the domestic market, but we must choose the best performance and price. According to the author's more than 10 years experience in plate making, we found that DuPont's Dupont Cyrel plate has high exposure latitude and high initial strength. The process can be repeated and is the preferred medium for the industry.

2. Select high quality film. Plain text and line plates can be copied on their own. In relation to the color printing image edition, the fine text version must be produced by the publishing center. The density (blackness) of the multiplex film must be above 3.5. When it comes to barcodes, please ask the barcode center to provide the film.

3, often make image dot version, to replace the exposure lamp. Please use PHILIPS lamps because Philips lamps have an accurate wavelength and high luminous flux.

4. Always keep the freshness of the washing solution to reduce moire and pitting.

5. Once a week, change the suction membrane frequently.

If you can pay attention to the above issues, you can use a domestic plate maker to produce high-quality printing plates.