FFS Bag Flexo Printing Machine
Xianghuai Machinery: Your Trustworthy FFS Bag Flexo Printing Machine Supplier!
What is FFS Bag Flexo Printing Machine?
The FFS heavy-duty film flexo printing machine is a piece of equipment that can print high-quality and durable prints on various films, such as BOPP, LLDPE, and HDPE. This machine is mainly used for printing FFS (Form, Fill, Seal) bags, also known as heavy duty bags. It is used for manufacturers of heavy-duty bags, industrial sacks, and flexible packaging solutions, which uses flexible photopolymer printing plates to imprint images across a wide range of surfaces. The machine integrates multiple processes such as printing, die-cutting, and polishing, so multiple processes could be completed at one time, no need to separately purchase corresponding post-press equipment.
Features of FFS Bag Flexo Printing Machine
Wide Compatibility
Our FFS flexo printing machines are compatible with a variety of materials, including plastic film, paper, non-woven fabrics, PP woven fabrics, aluminum foil and other similar drum type materials. It also supports 2-color, 4-color, 6-color, 8-color printing and roll-to-roll printing.
Run Smoothly
This equipment is equipped with a cylinder to lift the printing roller, and uses a power brake control system and an EPC control system to complete unwinding, printing and drying operations to ensure smooth connection between various printing processes.
Precise Positioning
Our FFS flexo printing machine adopts a multi-point digital electronically controlled registration adjustment system with infrared positioning function, which can achieve vertical and horizontal registration within 1 minute and control the error within 0.5mm.
Easy to Operate
The machine also features an intuitive interface that offers a range of customizable printing parameters and is compatible with different printing substrates and printing characteristics of inks, allowing it to reach speeds of up to 500 meters per minute.
Main Parts of FFS Bag Flexo Printing Machine
Lets look into the flexo printing press through a few of its few crucial components that include the anilox, plate, ink, and the substrate.
Anilox
Anilox is the cylinder or the cylinder sleeve on the flexo press that picks up the ink for printing. If we look closely at the anilox under the microscope, we can discover that the anilox is made up of millions of tiny cells for picking up the ink. Different cell shapes pick up ink differently. Some of the common cell shapes include hexagons at different angles, quadrangle, line, and canal. The depth of the cell also comes in many different forms, such as sharp pyramid, flattened pyramid, or a flattened pyramid with a straight cut. The size of the cells also comes in many different specifications measured in LPI or line per inch, the more lines indicates more cells on the anilox. As the cells grow smaller, more cells can be fitted onto the anilox. This allows for finer layers of ink to be picked up, but at the same time, this also indicates that less ink will be picked up as the cell holes are smaller. The volume of ink that is picked up by each cell is measured by BCM or billion cubic microns per square inch. When picking out an anilox suitable for the printing job, there needs to be a balance between the LPI and BCM. The relationship between LPI and BCM is inversely related, meaning the higher the LPI the lower the BCM and vice versa.
Plates
The plate is one of the distinguishing features of the flexo press. Flexo plate is where the printing design goes. Similar to the concept of stamps or letterpress. As the plate rotates on the plate cylinder or plate sleeve, the relief on the flexo plate picks up the ink from the anilox then, transfers it onto the substrate or the printed materials. The flexo plates are made from photopolymers. The production of the plate design goes through an exposure process using CTP technology or computer to plate. The exposure design forms a relief image on the flexo plate. The common way that the relief is structured to form the image is known as plate screening. In general, there are AM(Amplitude Modulated) screening, FM(Frequency Modulated) Screening, and now more commonly XM(cross Modulated) screening.
Ink
The flexo ink for the flexo press in general comes in three different specifications which are water-based, solvent-based, or UV/UV-LED curing ink. The flexo inks need to be fast drying to match the mechanical speed of the flexo press that usually operates between 250m/min to 500m/min. During the printing operation, flexo ink needs to be maintained and controlled at a certain viscosity range, pH range, and temperature range for the optimum print result. Maintaining the ink at a controlled state is a complicated and time-consuming process. That’s why many flexo printing press manufacturers are introducing an auto ink control system to the flexo press.
Substrates
The Flexo press can print on various substrates or materials. This includes porous substrates such as paper, carton and cardboard. For non-porous substrates family including PE, PET, PP, and aluminum. The substrate is fed into the flexo press in a roll form from the unwinder unit. The tension of the substrate needs to be controlled with precision as it moves through the printing and drying units. The capability to main a precise substrate tension makes all the difference in print quality. This is a crucial disguising point for great flexo press and mediocre flexo press.
Benefits of FFS Bag Flexo Printing Machine
Versatility across Substrates
Flexo printing is a star when it comes to versatility. It can expertly handle a wide array of substrates, from plastic and metallic films to laminates and paper. This adaptability is especially crucial for label printing, where diverse materials are a constant. With the packaging industry's ever-changing demands, flexo offers a future-proof solution, allowing you to print on almost any material with ease.
Swift Setup and Rapid Turnarounds
Flexo presses excel in streamlining setup processes, resulting in quicker job turnarounds. This feature is a boon for businesses that require speedy deliveries or contend with fluctuating order volumes, such as pharmaceutical companies. Unlike offset, where setup can involve mechanical processes and heavy components, flexo's job setting is swift and doesn't rely heavily on mechanical steps.
Lengthy Production
The continuous printing process, without the need for frequent stops or plate changes, minimizes wastage and enhances production efficiency. Unlike many offset machines, they can nearly double the production rate. This translates into higher output volumes and an improved return on investment (ROI) for your business.
Embracing Modern Trends
In an era marked by sustainable packaging and eco-friendly inks, flexo printing adapts to water-based inks and environmentally-friendly materials, aligning with sustainability. Flexo's simplicity with fewer moving parts results in reduced maintenance and less reliance on oils.
Factors for Choosing Flexo Printing Materials
While choosing an image carrier is an important starting point, numerous other factors can affect what materials are right for your flexographic printing process. This includes:
●Durometers
●Surface tension
●Ink compatibility
●Substrate type
●Compliance concerns
Different flexographic printing materials can give you extremely different results. Some materials may excel in certain situations and not others, but the important thing is to find the right solution for your situation.
Durometers
A durometer is a measurement of the hardness of polymers, elastomers, and rubbers. The hardness of a particular material is measured on a Shore A durometer scale of 0-100. We offer ela stomer compounds that range from 38-97 durometers.
Surface Tension
Surface tension is defined as the tendency of liquids exposed to air to act as though they are confined by an elastic membrane under tension. Surface tension comes from the trait of liquids tending to stick to themselves at a molecular level, rather than interact with air. Surface tension can be a delicate balance.
Flexographic printing requires ink with a low enough surface tension compared to an image carrier so it can be successfully transmitted. Then the final substrate needs an even higher surface tension than the image carrier to guarantee ink is fully transmitted to the substrate.
Surface tension must increase throughout the printing process to ensure that the desired image is perfectly transmitted every time. Choosing the right surface tension of materials is massively important for this process to play out correctly. Generally speaking, the surface tension of your elastomer should be in the range of three dynes higher than your ink and three lower than your substrate. On average, an image carrier has a dyne level in the 30s.
Ink Compatibility
The choice of ink also has a great impact on your flexographic process. You must ensure that your choice of ink is compatible with your entire print operation. Flexographic ink usually falls into one of two types:
Curable inks: Finalized after printing using UV light to dry and cure them.
Volatile inks: Chemical, water, or oil-based inks that are designed to cure through evaporation and absorption
Water-based volatile inks are the most environmentally friendly but carry an incredibly high surface tension meaning they're often most useful for highly absorbent substrates. Oil-based inks can be very useful in certain situations, but produce harmful VOCs and can create a hazard for employees and long-term effects for the environment.
Substrate Type
A wide variety of substrates are available when flexo printing. The flexo process can transfer high-quality images to both porous and non-porous surfaces. With ITR sleeves, flexo is ideal for printing on challenging shapes and textures of substrates. The web-fed design of flexo printing presses allow substrates to be continuously fed for faster and more efficient printing, so while there is a huge variety of substrates that can be printed on with flexo, try to choose something that makes full use of that advantage.
FDA/ Other Compliance Considerations
You'll want to ensure that any combination of materials you choose for your ideal flexographic print operation comply with all relevant regulations. The International Organization for Standardization has numerous requirements that should be complied with during flexographic printing. Depending on your location, local authorities may have more stringent guidelines for processes and materials. If you work on packaging for food, medicine, or any other product regulated by the FDA, make sure you are following all requirements necessary to protect the integrity of these perishable materials.
Tips for Design Packaging with FFS Flexo Printing Machine
The purpose of this text is to help designers understand problems of flexography in order to achieve better print results.
Format Size
Pictures used in design must have a minimum resolution whatever the format of those pictures are (TIFF, PSD, JPEG or some other type). This minimum resolution is calculated by multiplying resolution of printing plate (for example 46 lines per centimetre) with 2,54 (46 lpc × 2,54 =117 lpi) and 2 (117 lpi x 2=234 dpi). The two at the end represent main rule in flexography, that the picture or image must be at least two times larger than resolution of printing plates. That means that it must be at least 117 lpi × 2 =234 dpi on the monitor for raster. Recommended size is a little bigger varies between 254 and 300 dpi. Resolution larger than that, for example 400 dpi, is useless since the details in the image cannot be printed and the oversized images take much space. It must be noted that during printing you may lose parts of colour space shown on the monitor if the image is in RGB and not in CMYK format and this part can be important for some end costumer.
●lpi=line per inch
●lpc=line per cm
●dpi=dot per inch
Vectors And Text Format
Do not use raster process on vectors and text unless it is for some special intentional effect. If the format is only CMYK (text/logo) do not rasterize it, because it is possible that the text will be made as a special spot colour (different than the raster process colour). In that case, during prepress the text will be extracted by hand, converted into vector, and convert into another colour, followed by trapping process. Used colour on colour trapping is minimum 0,1 mm (depend on the machine).
Do not forget to add the font you used or alternatively convert the text into vector (function expand in Illustrator). Printed minimum text size is small (6, 5 or even 4 pt), while for invert text minimum of 8 pt bold is recommended for gold, metallic colours, and strong colours. 6 or 5 pt is for white on black background film. If you are working with vectors, you should use original program like Illustrator, since it is not recommended to leave the vectors in Photoshop. It is a good thing to add a JPEG or PDF preview file to see the original idea.
Shadow, Minimum, Maximum
In flexography process there can be a dot gain which can result with something like a step (tonal jump effect). One percent on the monitor can go as far as 20% in print especially if solid colour (100 % full tone) is used with gradient in raster on the same printing plate. That is also the reason the gradient is sometimes separated from the same spot colour. Tonal jumps occur with CMYK images in sharp contrast usually on black and cyan colour, and with certain techniques the tonal jump can be minimized (e.g., avoiding 0% CMYK colours, softening the contrasts, etc.). In addition to problems with minimum, problems regarding filling up may also occur. For example, 95% of defined colour can occur better than 100%. Plate producers use this effect for the best results in flexographic. That also can be avoided by using softer contrast or by simply not using the colour definition above 95%.
Number of Colours
The maximum number of colours must be respected. It is impossible to print design with defined fourteen spot Pantone colours with an 8-colour printing machine (real, not so uncommon example). Do not forget white ink. If we print on transparent film one colour is usually used as a white background colour, so just seven colours are left. Same goes for mat varnish or glossy/protection varnish. Solid and raster area in the same colour will be also separated in most case and they will be used as two separate colours with different ink thickness. Logo and vector text must be also defined as Pantone, HKS and not as a CMYK colour. Anilox roller for CMYK raster has 3-4 times less ink transfer as a spot colour anilox roller. So, if you define a text in 100 % black in CMYK and use as a CMYK colour the colour will be dark grey and if we use same ink with 3-4 time stronger anilox roller the test will be very dark black.
Several types of pigments can give the same colour shade but with different characteristic. For example, red Pantone 485 C can be made with mixture of yellow and magenta, or orange and magenta, warm red and yellow…etc. The colour shade will be same but effects as bronzing with orange, low light fastness with warm red can occur. Metallic inks (gold, silver…) have an aluminium or other pigments with metallic glow which can’t be measured. Such colours can’t be used like normal colours because they need bigger viscosity and low-resolution big ink transfer anilox.
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Frequently Asked Questions of FFS Bag Flexo Printing Machine
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