The material technology and printing technology contained in a small carton are colorful and quite challenging. Below, the editor will introduce five printing methods for corrugated boxes.
1. Post-printing corrugated box flexo printing slotting machine method
This printing method was introduced in China in the early 1980s (commonly known as watermarking machine), but its development is slow. The main reason is that corrugated boxes are used as transport packaging and corrugated paper is still printed in an intensive and low-cost way. Using screen printing, the ink layer is thick, the ink is easy to wear when being transported, and it will pollute fingers and clothes. Only after environmental protection problems occur in export packaging, people gradually pay attention to environmental protection.
In fact, the "watermark" method has many advantages:
(1) Using flexible printing plates, not only can copy text, lines, solid floor, but also can copy fine screen version, the plate making speed is faster than the hand-engraved rubber version;
(2) It can form a linkage production line with other processes;
(3) Flexible printing plates can be compressed and deformed. For flat printing and gravure printing, the thickness of the printing base material is consistent, the surface is smooth and flat, and corrugated paper is generally unable to do it. It is precisely because the flexible plate can be compressed and deformed, the thickness of the corrugated paper is within the controlled range There is a slight error in the degree, which has little effect on quality, and the printing plate can also print out pictures and text;
(4) It belongs to high-speed, high-quality and efficient printing methods;
(5) Water-based ink can be applied, which is convenient and environmentally friendly;
(6) The structure of the flexo printing machine is relatively simple, which is suitable for the requirements of large-size carton.
Corrugated carton flexo printing slotting machine, the printing width reaches 1.6 meters, 2 meters, 2.5 meters, 3 meters, and even more than 3 meters. There are three types of such machines, which can meet different enterprise and production requirements:
(1) Flexo printing-slotting machine: This kind of equipment is widely used at present, suitable for flat box, also suitable for printing color pictures and off-machine die cutting. For special-shaped boxes and function boxes, 1 to 5 color groups can be selected according to needs;
(2) Flexo printing-slotting-die cutting machine: the current application is increasing year by year, suitable for special-shaped boxes and functional boxes, and 4 to 6 color groups can be selected according to needs;
(3) Flexographic printing-slotting-gumming-folding box-bundling production line: corrugated cardboard enters the assembly line, the carton comes out, and it is directly loaded on the truck and shipped out. The degree of automation is very high.
Corrugated boxes are printed on flexo plates, which account for 95% in the United States (some sources say 98%), of which post-printing accounts for about 70%. At present, it is estimated that domestic post-india accounted for 58%.
Corrugated carton flexographic post-printing technology is now widely used in China, and the prospects are optimistic. The advantages of post-printing are: inline production, high efficiency, plus the use of water-based inks for flexo printing, environmental protection, light pressure, low printing base material requirements, less bad films, and low equipment prices. Leading role. Now some concepts are gradually changing, such as over-packaging, compliance with environmental protection requirements, and excessive pursuit of print quality.
The key to post-printing is to improve the quality of the original and flexo printing. The number of printed lines of corrugated cardboard boxes abroad is not high (60 to 100 lines / inch), and the image looks bright, the vision is good, the three-dimensional sense is very strong, and the colors are also rich and bright. The key is the original. There are gaps in this area in China.
There are many varieties of corrugated boxes, and the quality requirements are different. The printed products are single-color and double-color, there are characters and lines, and there are on-site and color pictures. Enterprises should position themselves well, do not participate in vicious competition, develop linkage production lines, pay close attention to quality, and communicate more with plate-making units.
In principle, the ceramic anilox roller can be used to print color images. Generally, 40 to 80 lines / inch is used for printed products, and 80 to 110 lines / inch is used for fine products. Printing Mandarin should not be used. ".
Recently, I reviewed a bid of a certain unit. The introduced flexo printing slotting machine is very advanced, but unfortunately there is no requirement for the thickness of the printing plate. The thickness of a good device plate should be 2.84mm, not 3.94mm. The development trend of flexographic plate materials is that the thickness should be thin and the hardness should be high. The purpose is to reduce the deformation of the printing plate and restore the dots well. Conditional units should use thin printing plates. Only when the color pictures are printed can we increase our competitiveness and occupy the market.
2. Preprinted sheet-fed offset printing method
The characteristic of pre-printing is good printing quality. If it is lithographic printing, it can be printed to 175 lines / inch. Domestic lithographic printing is used for pre-printing, which is a large number. It is estimated that it currently accounts for 30% of this field. There will also be a market for a long time, but eventually it will go downhill.
Reasons for preprinting in domestic lithography:
(1) The private economy is underdeveloped and the accumulation of capital is insufficient, resulting in low commodity output or low working capital, so packaging products are printed in small batches;
(2) Commodity promotion needs to beautify through packaging, and the quality of lithographic printing is very good. Although the cost is higher than that of post-printing, for high-value-added commodities such as food, gifts, toys, electrical appliances and other products, the proportion of cost is not large;
(3) The cost of plate-making after flexographic printing is higher today, and the quality cannot keep up. Therefore, some enterprises value the sheet-fed lithographic pre-printing market, and have purchased a very large-scale (above 1.4 meters) lithographic printing machine, laminating machine, and die cutting machine.
Sheet-fed lithographic printing is followed by mounting with corrugated paper, die-cutting, and box-making. This method is relatively expensive and restricts development. If the quality of the flexographic printing is further improved and the batch size is increased, the flexographic printing method is more suitable.
3. Pre-printed web flexo printing method
Roll paper flexo pre-printing method, the number of printing plate lines is mostly 120-150 lines / inch, and the printing quality is good. This method accounts for about 25% in the United States, and it is currently estimated to account for about 3% in the country. The pre-printing method and box-making process have been successfully explored and put into production in Sichuan Deyang Daily Printing Factory in 2002. Xi'an Aerospace Huayang Printing and Packaging Equipment Co., Ltd. manufactured this equipment in 2007—a satellite-based flexo printing machine, and Has been mass produced. This creates favorable conditions for web preprinting and is expected to develop in recent years.
This technology is restricted by two aspects:
â‘ The amount of printing needs to be very large (currently mainly used for beer and milk carton packaging printing);
â‘¡Requires good printing quality (otherwise it can be replaced by flexible printing). There will be a certain demand in the domestic market, and it is estimated that it will develop to account for 8% to 10% of this field.
4. Pre-printed roll flexographic printing method
As mentioned above (roll-to-roll), the pre-printing requirements are large-volume orders. If it is not a large-volume order, what can you do? You can use roll paper to flexo it, cut it into a single sheet, and then mount it. This method has lower equipment requirements, and can be printed on a unit-type or laminated flexo printing machine. The quality is better than that of post-printing. It is suitable for large-width orders, such as carton boxes of over 1.2 meters in size. If the lithographic printing method is used to exceed the specifications of a full-page printing press, the offset printing price that exceeds the full-sheet specification is very high, the printing cost increases, and the flexographic printing method is much lower in price. This technology currently has an upward trend.
5. Post-printing lithography
There is demand in the market, and people will always find ways to meet new demands. Lithography requires uniform thickness of the substrate, good flatness, smooth surface, if it is rough corrugated, it cannot be printed directly on the lithographic printing machine, usually used fine corrugated (E, F, M type) and high quality weight slightly higher Corrugated paper made of paper, which meets the packaging and packaging requirements of high-end goods.
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