From new plastic to decor printing

News Digest: Week commencing 17th May 2021 – a quick run through of all the stories from this week that didn’t merit a post in their own right, and this week includes a new 3D printing material, with new installations for packaging, pharmaceutical labels and direct to garment printing.

Ultimaker is now offering its own PETG filament for use with its 3D printers. PETG, which is a Glycol Modified version of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), is one of the most popular types of materials for fused filament fabrication printers such as those supplied by Ultimaker, and is an obvious step for the company to appeal to more professional users.

Miguel Calvo, CTO at Ultimaker, explained: “Adding Ultimaker PETG to our set of standard materials is a natural next step from the launch of our platform. It enhances our material portfolio as industrial use cases for 3D printing continue to rise. Its excellent all-round properties are a strong addition to our platform and are ideal for typical industrial environments and applications.”

Canon has added two new automation options – a Sensing Unit and an Inspection Unit – to its ImagePress C10010VP colour dry toner press. The Sensing unit monitors front-to-back registration and colour tone before and during printing, automatically adjusting on the fly to ensure consistency with the job settings. The Inspection unit monitors every printed page for issues such as distortion, as well as identifying defects such as streaks and dirt on the media. Customers can choose to purge and automatically reprint faulty pages. It can spot defects as small as 0.2mm diameter and the sensitivity levels can be tailored to the specific needs of each job. 

Nazdar has added two extra colours – Orange and Light Black – to 130 Series solvent inkjet inks, which currently consist of CMYK plus Light Cyan, and Light Magenta. This should allow for an enhanced range of colours and more accurate greyscale printing on graphics output. The 130-series inks are designed for use in Mimaki printers. Stephen Woodall, Market Segment Manager, explained: “The Orange ink has been added to the range to ensure our end-user customers can achieve a wider, more vibrant colour gamut, while the new Light Black option will help deliver stunning monochrome images.”

NEW INSTALLATIONS

Eson Pac, a Swedish pharmaceuticals packaging printer has invested in a seven-colour Rapida 106 X for cardboard packaging printing from Koenig and Bauer. The press, which is due to be installed later this summer, will be configured with an inline coater and extended delivery, as well as automation solutions such as DriveTronic SPC for simultaneous plate changing. Pierre Åkesson, COO at Eson Pac, commented: “By installing this seven-colour printing press in our plant in Veddige, we will significantly increase our flexibility and printing capacity. We have had several Koenig & Bauer presses up and running in Veddige for a few years now.”

Hickling & Squires, a commercial and wide format printer based in Nottingham in the UK, has recently installed a Fujifilm EM platesetter and switched to using Fujifilm’s Superia ZD processless plates. Production Director Jamie Gilbert commented: ”We’ve been able to get rid of our processor, which means no more processing chemicals and no more processing waste. We used to have to factor in servicing and maintenance costs for the processor as well, so that has all gone too. We’ve freed up staff time to put to more productive uses and the cost saving is already massive. It’s completely changed the way we work.”

Labelwerk, a German label printer specialising in pharmaceutical labels, has installed a Xeikon 3030 Rex – the converter’s first colour digital press and the first of this type of printer to be installed in Germany. The Rex range are older printers that Xeikon has taken back and remanufactured, and then resold. Jens Hermann, managing director of Labewerk, explains: “For many years, the main focus of technical pharmaceutical labels was on the accurate reproduction of medical information. These labels have now become ‘colourful’, meaning that they involve colour effects and graphical content. At the same time, there is now increasing demand for shorter runs with frequently changing images and different language versions.”

Screenworks, a traditional screen printer based in the UK, has added a Kornit Avalanche HD6 system for on-demand direct-to-garment production. The company has automated this production with a barcode-based system for routing artwork from point of sale to the print system, to the dryer for curing, to quality control, and on to shipping. Alan Porter, Operations Director at Screenworks. “The pretreatment was a key factor for us, as we can load a shirt, print it, take it off, and dry it without having a secondary process. Training people on this system is a lot easier and a lot more efficient than it would be to train more screen-print operators.”

Slotex, a supplier of decorative laminate solutions based in St Petersburg in Russia, has installed an Agfa InterioJet to offer short run on-demand decor designs such as kitchen panels to its customers. Vadim Osipov, CEO of Slotex, explains: “Print quality and colour reproduction are brilliant as well as consistent. The InterioJet’s prints perfectly match those of our gravure press as the Agfa inks use the same pigments, and thanks to the cross-technology colour management built in Agfa’s Asanti workflow software, which handshakes with the industry-leading CAD CAM software from AVA. The inks are fully compatible with all subsequent impregnation and lamination processes.”