Application of Sleeve Technology in Flexo Printing (I)

The advantages of sleeve technology

Sleeve technology has many advantages, which can be summarized as the following points.

1. The sleeve is light in weight, easy to load and unload, and the replacement of the sleeve can be easily completed by hand, which greatly reduces the labor intensity of the operator and can meet the needs of the printing manufacturer for rapid, flexible and personalized production.

2. By using different thickness sleeves, the required printing perimeter can be changed. That is, only one type of outer diameter air-bearing roll is used, and the main body can meet the needs of different printing perimeters in a large range, and has a high degree of The flexibility, such as sleeves with wall thicknesses of 10 mm and 70 mm, respectively, differs by nearly 400 mm in the printing perimeter.

3. The sleeve has a small footprint and is easy to store. It is manufactured using special processes and materials with high precision and long service life.

The rapid development of flexographic printing technology has led to the advancement of many new processes and technologies. The sleeve technology is one of them. This technology has been favored by users since its inception, and its application has become more and more extensive. Judging by the situation, the sleeve technology will continue to maintain a good development trend. At home, Rotec and LASERLIFE may be familiar with the two companies. They are the world's leading manufacturers and manufacturers of flexographic printing sleeve products, and are flexible worldwide. The printing factory provides a large number of high-quality sleeve products and perfect technical services, which have a high reputation in the industry. Why is sleeve technology so favored? What is the charm of its space?

4. The use of a sleeve system can reduce production and transportation costs with low cost.

It is because the sleeve technology has the outstanding advantages of the above aspects, has been favored by the majority of flexographic printing plants since its introduction, and has greatly promoted the rapid development of flexographic printing technology.

Sleeve classification and use

According to the different uses of the sleeve, it can be divided into a plate sleeve, a seamless plate sleeve, an engagement sleeve and an anilox roller sleeve.

1. Sticker sleeve

The sticker sleeve is specially used to mount photosensitive resin printing plates. This type of sleeve is easy to handle, easy to store, and low in cost. According to the different surface materials, the plate sleeve can be divided into a hard surface sleeve and a soft elastic surface sleeve.

(1) Hard surface sleeve

Hard surface sleeves, such as Rotec's Blue-Light sleeves, whose surface layers are precision machined rigid polymers that are very hard, have high hardness, impact resistance and cut resistance, and require foaming. Sticky tape on the sleeve with a printing plate. The hard surface sleeve is mainly used for thick printing (1.7mm~7mm) printing. The suitable substrate materials include kraft paper, paperboard, paper bag and soft material box, etc. It is not suitable for high quality, fine product printing.

(2) Soft elastic skin sleeve

The surface material of the soft elastic skin sleeve is a flexible and compressible polyurethane foam with good compression performance and a variety of hardness options. The hardness can be selected according to the type of plate and the specific conditions of the substrate. cylinder. The soft elastic skin sleeve is specially designed for CTP technology and high-quality thin flexographic design. It needs high-viscous thin (thickness 0.1mm) sticker tape to affix the plate. The soft elastic surface layer not only has good toughness and high processing precision, but also has high compressibility and can absorb vibration. Therefore, the combination of soft elastic sleeve and thin plate material can print fine high-gloss dots and dots. The increase rate is small, suitable for high-quality, fine product printing, such as bar codes, thin lines, halftone patterns, etc., and the printing quality and printing effect is very good.

The advantages of soft elastic skin sleeves are mainly manifested in the following aspects.

1 Standardization of flexographic printing eliminates the headache of sticking the plate for the tape or pad combination.

2 It can meet the requirements of both halftone edition and field edition printing at the same time, that is to say, it is able to simultaneously print high-gloss small dots and solid color blocks on the same plate.

3 can effectively control the dot gain, so that the printing quality has improved significantly.

4 It can reduce the wear on the printing plate and prolong the service life of the printing plate.

5 has high resilience and shock absorption performance, even in the high-speed printing process can quickly restore the original shape to avoid vibration.

2. Seamless seam plate sleeve

A seamless-printing sleeve, also called a sleeve-type printing plate, is a seamless printing plate that is directly engraved on the sleeve, which is somewhat similar to a gravure cylinder. With the development of computer direct plate making technology and laser engraving technology, the application of seamless printing plate sleeves has become more and more common. At present, there are many flexographic printing manufacturers in China that use seamless printing plate sleeves.

Seamless seam printing plates can be used to print continuous patterns or products with the same background color, such as wrapping paper, cigarette tipping tipping paper, wallpaper, etc. In addition, if such a seamless plate sleeve is not imaged, it can be used for coating, full plate coating, and printing in solid areas.

The seamless printing plate sleeve is mainly composed of three parts: the inner layer, the middle layer and the surface layer. The material of the inner layer of the sleeve is mainly made of special multi-layer glass fiber (GFK), which has the advantages of light weight, low rotation inertia, high bending strength, etc. It can also ensure smooth rotation in the case of high-speed printing. The middle layer of the sleeve consists of a special polyurethane rubber, which has high elasticity and compressibility. The compressibility of the middle layer has a great influence on the construction and performance of the sleeve. It not only can increase the wall thickness of the sleeve. It can also absorb the tensile deformation produced by the sleeve. In the printing process, it is precisely because of the compressibility of the intermediate layer that the smooth operation of the sleeve is ensured, thereby obtaining a good printing quality. The surface of the sleeve is mainly composed of a hard polymer coated with rubber or synthetic material.

3. Adaptor sleeve

As an intermediate between the air lift roller and the plate sleeve, the main function of the sleeve is to increase the diameter of the roller or air lift roller. The splice sleeve also has a compressible layer. There is an inflation hole like the air support roller. The press connects two air pumps. One air pump inflates the air support roller, and the other air pump inflates the splice sleeve. Therefore, When replacing the sleeve, it is not necessary to remove the sleeve from the air support roller.

4. Anilox roller sleeve

The anilox roller sleeve was produced about seven or eight years ago, and it was later than the printing plate sleeve. It was only widely known in the past two years. It is precisely because of the light, fast and many other advantages of the printing plate sleeve. For the same original purpose and purpose, the anilox roller manufacturers also began to try to develop the anilox roller sleeve.

The inner layer of most anilox roller sleeves is made of compressible material. The compressibility of the inner layer can be used to install and fix the wind roller sleeve on the bearing of the printing machine. The compressible inner layer is through the air. To control. The middle layer of the anilox roller sleeve is made of a composite material such as glass fiber or carbon fiber. The surface of the anilox roller sleeve is covered with a shell sheath made of metallic aluminum or metallic nickel. The purpose is to absorb the centrifugal force and protect the ceramic layer from cracks.