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Flexographic printing is easy to learn!
Flexographic printing, often abbreviated to flexoprinting, is a process used for printing, utilizing a flexible relief plate. Basically, it is an updated version of letterpress which may be used for printing on almost all types of substrate which includes cellophane, paper and plastic, and metallic films, also commonly used on aluminium foil in the pharmaceutical industry. Various types of food packaging also requiring a large area to be printed in a solid colour, is where printing on the non-porous substrates may be processed with a flexographic printer.The rotary flexographic printer is able to print from roll-to-roll aluminum bobbins that will cover blisters from neutral (non-printed) reels to customized reels.
With its excellent printing quality, it is easy to run and use. The flexographic printer FX28 represents the best solution for printing aluminium foils, as well as paper and plastic foils.
Fitting unprinted aluminium foil reels and printing them as per individual requirements, it takes a few minutes to print all you will need, during a day of production. Flexographic printing is very simple to learn and it is very cheap to prepare the clichés.
Here is a brief overview of how the printing process works.
There is an ink roller which transfers the ink from the ink pan to a second roller known as the Anilox roller.
The Anilox roller is what makes flexography so unique, measuring the predetermined ink which is transferred for equal thicknesses. The plates have numerous cells, below the surface level, at a prescribed depth, and these will carry a certain amount of ink or inks, hardly visible to the eye!
The printing plate is held by a plate cylinder, which is made of a very soft and flexible rubber type. To mount the plate to the cylinder head normally a double sided sticky tape is used.
The image is transferred to the substrate, when the impression cylinder applies pressure to the plate cylinder.
To see a flexographic printer at work, there are many videos online consisting of different machines due to size and brand name. I recommend you view these on youtube typing “flexographic printer” in the search box, and then look at the photos and pick a video to watch, it is that simple.
Most machines work with the same principal.
Applications- The advantages of Flexo over lithography is that a range of different inks, not so much of the oil inks, but the waterbased ones are good for printing on a variety of different materials.
To find out more, you can view a rotary flexographic printer at work:
http://www.tecnomaco.com/index.php?do=inglese
