UV "money" exploration

In fact, the wide application of UV printing technology is just right now. Today's market is tired of serious homogenous competition. Many industries are trying to establish their own brands and styles to establish their position in the market and thus jump out of the bargain. , low-end and price war in the cycle. UV printing and UV glazing technology achieve extraordinary and breakthrough traditions through their unique sensory effects.

Printing companies need UV

Why must use UV technology? Any of the following reasons will make you unable to refuse.

Improve product performance

UV printing has a good printability for a wide range of substrates. The actual UV print outlets are clear, the tone reproduction is good, the ink is bright and bright, and the printing consistency is high. At the same time, since the UV curing process is a photochemical reaction process, both the ink layer and the optical oil layer have the advantages of strong adhesion, strong durability, and resistance to water, chemicals, wear, and aging.

Increase productivity

Due to the light curing method, no heat source or solvent is required, and the curing time is very short. The general UV process can achieve a line speed of 400 meters/minute, which greatly improves the production efficiency.

Environmental standards

The entire curing system for UV printing is a solvent-free system, that is, a 100% solvent-free formula, and it does not contain VOC, which is precisely adapted to today's environmental requirements.

Improve economic efficiency

High production efficiency and high output mean high economic efficiency. At the same time, high speed means that it can reduce the storage costs and financial pressure of raw materials and finished products. At the same time, due to the low energy consumption of UV curing, the usual operating costs are also greatly reduced.

UV new challenges

Although there are many advantages to the UV process, the UV process, on the other hand, places very high demands on the printing industry.

Designing plate

Design drafts for making UV prints have very high output formats, such as front- or back-scanning of the film surface, the number of output lines, and the angle of the screen. These must be noted in the prepress stage.

Adhesion

Since substrates such as plastic sheets or gold/silver cardboards have very poor permeation performance, their adsorption to UV inks is weak, resulting in poor printing quality and requiring surface treatment of materials in advance.

Ink emulsification

The UV ink ink has a very narrow balance of ink and ink, which can cause ink emulsification and dirty printing during printing, which affects the printing quality. Therefore, the printing speed needs to be properly reduced, but it is still quite high compared to the ordinary printing speed.

Curing degree

In order to improve the color saturation of the printed matter, when performing UV printing, the printing pressure is relatively large, the ink layer is thicker, and the dots are enlarged so that the UV ink is not easily cured. In this case, the degree of curing must be controlled by appropriately reducing the printing speed.

Color order arrangement

The problem of UV offset sequence arrangement is more complicated. Due to the limitation of inking principle, the ink layer on the substrate is relatively thin. When a relatively thick ink layer is needed, it is difficult for the printed material to achieve the intended reproduction effect. Therefore, it is necessary to change the color sequence according to the specific circumstances, first printing a small amount of ink, after printing a large amount of black ink, so that you can get the highest amount of ink, more full color.

Print registration

UV offset When using UV light for ink curing, the main problem with curing is the thermal expansion of the substrate, resulting in misprints. This is inconsistent with the UV ink curing because the ink curing requires a longer UV lamp irradiation time, and the printing sleeve guidelines require a shorter UV lamp irradiation time. In this case, it is necessary to perform UV curing after printing the last color, so that even if the substrate expands, lowering the temperature for a period of time can minimize the deformation of the substrate. In special cases, the middle color group can also be turned on by UV light, but the shorter the irradiation time, the better. Or you can use cold UV technology.

Looking for UV "money"

UV offset printing

UV offset printing has the following advantages:

(1) The color saturation is high and the color effect is good. For print products with stricter color requirements, satisfactory results can be obtained.

(2) The high glossiness of the imprint, the bright visual appearance, and the matching of the matting background, can result in a sensational visual contrast and can enhance the high quality image of the product.

(3) It is applicable to various types of substrates with completely different physical and chemical properties, including paper, paperboard, plastic, SaiLuLuo, PVC, and PE.

(4) Printing can be dried at the same time. It can be processed on-line directly to ensure the stability of prints and greatly increase production efficiency.

However, UV offset printing also has some disadvantages:

(1) UV offset printing equipment and consumables have higher investment costs than traditional offset printing.

(2) The types of markets in which UV offset printing can be used are more extensive and dispersive than traditional offset printing. Without a thorough market analysis, there is a high risk that orders will not be found.

(3) UV offset printing imposes higher requirements on the production management technology, process control, and cost control of printing companies.

UV offset printing first began in the field of packaging and printing. The United States packaging and printing industry in the late 1990s was the best example. Since then, UV sheet-fed offset printing has also begun to develop rapidly. Many innovative printers took the lead in UV. The printing process is applied to special substrates, which breaks through the traditional design and printing effects and is welcomed by the market. Soon, the successful application of UV technology in the packaging and printing industry inspired companies in the label, commercial, and special printing industries. They also used UV printing on traditional prints such as labels and cards to launch new and innovative products that were far removed from China. Low-end print market price war troubled.

Practice has proved that the use of UV offset printing printed adhesive labels, stickers, in-mold labels, printing quality, comprehensive cost reduction are obvious. For high-end commercial prints such as annual reports, automotive samples, real estate stocks, fashion and jewelry catalogs, UV offset printing is used, with clear and colorful graphics and effects, and non-ordinary offset printing. The three-dimensional and glossy effects produced by UV offset printing on plastic cards and metal foils also have special touches, which also opens up new market areas for printing companies.

Some astute printers have used UV offset printing to develop products with new ideas and market potential, such as postcards that can protect personal information, beautiful and delicate PET folders, and holographic aluminum in-mold labels. It is difficult for ordinary offset printing in the past. Some cigarette pack manufacturers have begun to use offset UV inks to print fine sand, gold, silver and other common offset printing processes that are difficult to achieve.

In the field of web offset printing, UV inks have a fast drying speed and are particularly suitable for businesses that require the ink to have a curing speed that matches the printing speed, such as sticker printing and security printing using special inks.

UV screen printing

Screen printing is unique in printing due to its thick ink layer, bright colors and strong modernity. Since the solid content of the ink used in UV screen printing is 100%, there is no volatilization of components, and the thickness of the ink film after curing is basically not Change, so it is conducive to get a thick ink film, printing and curing process is easy to control, can prevent blocking, spots and other failures, reduce downtime.

The choice of UV screen printing is more important because the screen printing shows the perfect visual effects that can be achieved by the UV process, especially UV inks such as frosted, ice, foam, wrinkles, refraction, gems and other special inks. The screen printing process is used to print on the surface of a substrate with a metallic mirror gloss. After being processed by a UV curing device, it can produce unique visual effects that are elegant, dignified and luxurious. Therefore, UV screen printing products are mainly used in high-end, exquisite cigarettes, wine, cosmetics, health products, food, medicine and other packaging and printing.

UV screen printing is the biggest application area in China. It is a cigarette pack printing. UV printing on cigarette packs can produce matte, refraction, ice, wrinkles and other effects, which greatly stimulate consumers' desire to purchase. However, due to the flat press screen printing method with low printing speed, slow ink curing speed, difficult to control printing quality, and large consumption of printing materials, it is unable to meet the large-scale and batch production needs of cigarette cartons. Therefore, high-speed rotary screen printing is currently used. The production line has fast printing speed, high production efficiency, stable quality and low consumption of printed matter, and changes the traditional flat press screen printing manual feeding and ink supply modes, and is suitable for high-speed automatic and large-scale mass production of exquisite folding cartons.

Nowadays, there are many printing companies that have expanded their UV screen printing to a wider range of fields, such as compact discs, signs, banners, outdoor advertising, and wallpapers. Their perfect appearance and competitive production efficiency are accepted by the market. main reason.

UV flexo printing

The greatest feature of traditional flexographic printing is that the graphic part of the printing plate is higher than the non-graphic part, and it is flexible. It can express the subtle levels and contours of the graphic part. UV flexo printing, which combines the advantages of UV technology, has the following advantages:

(1) Safe and reliable, solvent-free, non-flammable, and environmentally friendly. Applicable to foods, beverages, cigarettes, wine, medicines and other sanitary packaging requirements of high quality printed matter. In fact, UV flexo printing applications have been in foreign food packaging for many years without any problems.

(2) Good printability and high quality. The physical properties of the ink during the printing process do not change, the solvent is not volatile, the viscosity is stable, and it is not easy to paste the plate and make a plate. The printing can be performed with a higher viscosity. The ink is strong, the dot resolution is high, and the reproduction of the tone is good. The ink is bright and bright. Strong, suitable for fine product printing.

(3) Instant curing, high production efficiency and wide adaptability. It has good adhesion on various printing carriers such as paper, aluminum foil, plastics, etc. The product can be stacked immediately after it is printed and no blocking will occur.

(4) Excellent physical and chemical properties. Due to the use of UV curing, UV flexo printing products have many excellent physical and chemical properties such as water resistance, solvent resistance, abrasion resistance, aging resistance, etc. This is unmatched by other inks and is particularly suitable for use in daily prints.

(5) Reduce costs. Since the UV flexographic printing ink does not have solvent evaporation and has a high active ingredient, it can be converted into an ink film with almost 100%, and the amount is not as good as the water-based ink or the solvent-based ink.