First, we have to understand what is flexographic printing?
There is a flexible relief plate which uses to print on a substrate made of wood-pulp or synthetic or laminated material. The flexo post-printing offline process is used for printing on corrugated, micro-flute boards in uncoated, semi-coated, and coated surfaces. It is widely used for multi-color packaging and in-store displays.
How does Flexographic Printing work?
There are generally 3 steps for flexographic printing
It starts with Artwork
In flexographic printing, Artwork creation is the first step. It is difficult to create a design according to the requirements of the final print. The error in designing costs you more.
Once the image carriers are produced, they cannot be changed.
On the printing cylinder, the image carriers created are flat stretch, and distort the image.
Next is Web-Fed Substrate Materials
The rolling design allows continuous substrate materials to fed through the machine in the flexographic printing press.
It allows the continuous printing process and achieve high speeds, accuracy and can print longest rolls
Flexographic Printing Machine
First is Unwind and Infeed
First, the roll of the substrate is fed into a printing press. The tension is must be kept to avoid slack which may cause wrinkling, misregistration, web breaks, and other defects.
Enclosed Doctor Blade Inking System
There is a continuous cycling pump that fills the chamber with ink. After that, the ink is transferred onto an anilox roll and excess is removed by a doctor blade. The ink cycle of the machine is in and out while printing.
Anilox Roller
It has microscopic cells and carries a thin layer of ink from the inking system for image carrier
Image Carrier and Impression Cylinder
The image is transferred to the substrate by the image carrier.
The substrate between the image carrier and impression cylinder is pulled by the flexographic press. At the same time, the impression cylinder holds the exact amount of pressure for even ink distribution.
Drying
There are substrate winds which roller-less and plate-less sections to dry the ink. As the colors used in the run, the substrate has to pass through multiple image carriers, impression cylinders, and drying sections in a single run. It passes through as the number of colors.
Outfeed and Rewind
It is the last step of the flexographic printing machine. In this step, the substrate is rolled up again for cutting die and it will separate individual prints.
Advantages of Flexography
It is also known as Flexo Printing or surface printing and widely used for packaging and labeling. It can print on any surface with low viscosity inks and fast drying. This is suitable for long runs as it prints in a short time. The flexo press produces low-cost labels with maintaining quality and maintenance of the machine is also low. The printing plates are durable yet need a plate for every color.
