Flexographic Printing: Flexography is the method of printing images and words onto paper, foil or film. It is the combination of two different forms of printing: rotogravure and letterpress, but it is done with flexible plates. Flexographic Printing is the method of direct rotary printing where a special rubber or photopolymer material is used. The printing plates are fixed to the plate cylinders at different repeat lengths. These plates are inked by a cell structure used to meter the flow of the ink on the roll. The structure carries ink to the plates to print on different surfaces.
There are five components involved - ink pan, fountain roll, plate cylinder, anilox roll and impression cylinder.
The ink pan is a large industrial-type pan filled with ink. The fountain roll is suspended partially in the pan to transfer the ink onto the anilox roll as each of them is rotating. After the ink reaches the anilox roll, the roll gets covered with some amount of ink on its dimpled surface. Extra ink is scraped from the roll. It is the dimpled surface on the roll that ensures the right amount of ink is being transferred to the plate cylinder. The cylinder then rotates to cover the ink on the raised areas. As the cylinder rotates, an impression cylinder pulls the printing material that is to be printed. Every revolution of a printing plate cylinder produces an image. So, if an image is stamped multiple times around a cylinder, several images will be printed in one revolution.
Flexography Plates: The first step involved in flexographic printing is the development of flexographic plates. These can be created by using a UV reactive polymer, digital platemaking or by creating a mold.
● It is simple to operate
● Either UV or water-based inks can be utilized
Since the flexographic printing process can be used to print on a variety of materials, it is ideal for the printing of pressure sensitive labels, shrink sleeves, pouches and other packaging products.
