Three printing processes commonly used for printing corrugated boxes
Corrugated cardboard box is a logistics packaging container integrating transportation and sales functions.The carton industry continues to meet the comprehensive requirements of the terminal market on the quality and cost of the outer packaging through technical innovation.
offset print
In addition to the micro corrugated boxes can be directly offset printing, general corrugated boxes need to use offset mounting box, this way of simple equipment, complex process, printing to mounting processing drying time (generally about 48 hours); the printing process is not environmentally friendly, the processing process energy consumption. Its basic process is: single corrugated board production + offset paper for mount composite cardboard mold cut groove adhesive nail box, offset veneer carton exquisite effect at the expense of the carton strength, because on the veneer machine across the paper and single corrugated cardboard mount, corrugated compression deformation, will reduce carton compressive strength, and corrugated automatic production line can not fully play the advantage, can only have the effect of semi-automatic. In order to make up for the strength loss, the cardboard quantification remains high, which is inconsistent with the "low quantity and high intensity" process advocated in the industry for many years.
Only considering the printing effect, offset printing is still in a high status, up to 250 lines / inch of the network line number is far ahead of flexo printing, which is the fundamental reason why businesses have always adhered to offset printing. But in fact, some flexo preprinting production lines have reached 150 lines / inch, visual effect and offset printing. The carton is mainly for the transportation function, and usually the commodity display function is reflected in the distance of 1m from the consumer. At this time, the effect of flexo printing is completely acceptable. From the perspective of carton processing process prospects, carton manufacturers are more optimistic about flexo printing direct printing.
Soft printing direct printing
Its production process is corrugated board production——Direct flexographic printing on corrugated board——Module cut-out slot——glue a box
Some places advocate flexo printing for two reasons: first, flexo printing uses water-based ink printing, which is more environmentally friendly; second, the subsequent printing processing has great flexibility, fast replacement speed and low rejection rate. Flexiplate afterprinting is suitable for large batch and long order printing.The biggest advantage is that the production can be wired, that is, printing, lighting, die cutting, grooving, sticky box, bundling can be done on a machine. The new corrugated box factory only needs to be equipped with corrugated board production line and flexo machine can be put into production, while the use of offset printing and preprinting requires multiple equipment.
preprinting
Pre-printing is the first face paper roll printing, and then the printed roll paper to the corrugated machine, the production of corrugated board, and then after the later process processing carton. Pre-printing can produce high-grade cartons, which can not only meet the requirements of exquisite printing, but also can reduce the strength of corrugated board as little as possible. Preprinting is divided into gravure preprinting and flexo preprinting. Due to the expensive printing plate and fast printing speed, the starting volume of pre-printing carton should not be less than 500,000 boxes, which is not applicable to small and medium-sized customers and short edition live parts. European and American flexo corrugated boxes accounted for more than 80% -90%, but flexo preprint only accounted for 30% or lower, the development speed slowed down. Preprinting is a new technology, which has a certain development space.
As an advanced printing process, preprinting requires the use of advanced equipment and technology. At the same time, the corresponding material also put forward higher requirements, not only requires the corrugated board to have a very high side pressure strength and breaking resistance, but also requires the smoothness of the paper to be good, in order to achieve good printability. After comparison and testing, Budweiser finally selected 185g / m2 coated beef card paper from Finnish M-Real. This low quantitative, high strength paper greatly reduced the cost of the carton.
The protective performance of pre-printed corrugated boxes is more outstanding, which can not only better protect corrugated from damage, but also improve the compressive strength of corrugated boxes by 10%, which can better ensure the quality of products in the process of transportation. In addition, the printing accuracy of pre-printed corrugated carton is high, clear and exquisite pictures, rich and saturated color. After the use of preprinting and coating, it can be comparable to the effect of coating after offset printing, after long-distance transportation, storage, handling process can still maintain good printing quality. The preprinting process is especially suitable for the printing of milk, beer and high-end drinks.
Here are some parameters of corrugated paper printers, if you are interested click "here" to view them in detail.
Leave a Comment