The development status of digital printing in Corrugated packaging industry
With more and more customized orders and short plate orders, digital printing is gaining more and more attention by the packaging industry. What the developing stage of the digital printing ? What are the advantages and disadvantages of digital printing?1.Three grades of corrugated digital printing pressWith the continuous innovation of digital printing technology, commercial digital printing equipment has been expanding to support thicker cardboard. However, the development speed of digital printing press special for corrugated paper is still far behind that of the commercial field, which is more at the beginning level. Professional level and industrial level need more efforts in light of research and development.1).Beginning levelWe are often heard of digital printing press for corrugated paper, the common one is versatile digital printing press. In fact, many all equipment suppliers purchase domestic or foreign nozzle, and inkjet imaging, then design a set of platform system and integrated software output system, in this way, a versatile digital printing press at beginning level is finished. There are tens of millions manufactures, and the price ranges from tens of thousands of yuan to hundreds of thousands, investment threshold is rather low. The machine not only can print on corrugated paper, but also on other materials such as plastic, metal, glass and ceramic etc. What a versatile one!However, such equipment has many shortcomings, such as unstable operation, difficult color control, limited production capacity, low degree of automation, which is heavily relying on the experience of operators.2).Professional levelCompared to the entry level, it has been greatly improved, the speed is faster, basically, it can run stably at about 100 m/min. It has specialized software system, the printing quality, degree of automation and stability have been significantly improved. Integrated with foreign brand nozzle, dedicated to corrugated paper printing. There is a wide range of choices in domestic and foreign brands, the price differs a lot, and the late use of cost-sharing is more controllable.3).Industrial levelThe first industrial corrugated digital printing press was manufactured by kodak and Sun automation group, and then HP launched Scitex series. EFI also launched the C18000 corrugated digital printing press in 2016. This kind of rapid equipment based on UV and water - based ink - jet technology has the performance of good quality, fast speed, high productivity, and wide compatibility. The degree of automation and intelligence is relatively high, one-time cost investment is also high. It is very suitable for large corrugated packaging enterprises.2.Three basic categories of digital printing equipmentAt present, digital printing press in corrugated packaging industry can be divided into three types: partial digital printing, flat-sheet digital printing, web-fed digital printing.1). Partial digital printingPartial digital printing is a combination of traditional printing and digital printing equipment. Partial random graphic printing can be realized at a relatively low cost.2). Flat-sheet digital printingFlat-sheet digital printing press targets the traditional water-printing or offset printing press.Generally, there are fixed nozzle and sliding nozzle. Printing width is usually large, the feature of mixing the ink without changing the plate has attracted a lot of corrugated packaging enterprises.3).Web-fed digital printing The main market for web digital printing is for large volume orders involving traditional offset and water-printing, as well as flexographic pre-printing.Discussion on the operation of digital printing equipment1).Equipment costAt present, the cost of digital printing equipment is generally high, the main reasons are as follows:● It is not a very long time for digital printing technology being used in corrugated packaging industry, therefore, the equipment, technology research and development costs are relatively high.● The market for digital printing equipment is in its infancy with limited sales volumes.2). Maintenance costThe maintenance cost of nozzle should be dominant in the whole range. The nozzle is the most precise and core part of the digital printing press. The ink, use frequency and use environment will all have impact on its service life and quality, as a result, the cost of cleaning or replacing the nozzle is high. Besides, the patented technical protection and production accuracy of nozzle also lead to high cost.3). Production costThe current popular digital printing equipment in corrugated packaging industry is mainly for inkjet, high-speed and high pressure inkjeting is the key to ensure the production speed and quality. So the ink pressure is essential. If the production continuity is not high or the nozzle is not stable, it will lead to a rise in ink consumption, and the current digital printing equipment ink cost is generally more than ten times the traditional printing ink, or even higher.4). Production efficiencyAt present, most of the digital printing equipment is positioned as customized products. The reason is that many people hold the misunderstanding of which the biggest advantage of digital printing is complete customization. As a result, the production efficiency of some current digital printing equipment is low and the product price is too high to fully expand the market share.In fact, under the current technical conditions, the real key to digital printing that is different from traditional printing is variable graphic printing, rather than variable cutting.5).Quality stabilityDue to the short time for digital printing equipment to enter the corrugated packaging industry, the acceptance of digital printing technology and corrugated market needs time and space. At present, the accuracy of inkjet digital printing could basically meet the market demand. But the stability of production quality needs to be further improved.