New UV Lamps but Low Output? By Tim Reece We all understand that conventional ultraviolet lamps diminish energy over time. Therefore, we use UV light meters to continually monitor the performance of these lamps so that we may adjust main and back exposure times. Certainly, some could argue that they don't need a UV light … Read More...
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The Problem Even when it seems you are doing everything you normally do during the platemaking process, sometimes defects surface in the UPC area. In order to avoid rejection by the customer or even fines that may be incurred at the retail location, it is critical that UPC's are reproduced at the highest level of … Read More...
Submitted by Bill Poulson, Harper Graphic Solutions' Northeast Technical Graphics Advisor. Managing your anilox rolls is a preventive way of getting control of your graphic quality as well as press efficiency. Downtime is the enemy, and every attempt made to minimize downtime is a worthwhile effort. Whether you are a wide web or a narrow … Read More...
Overview Many of today's award winning photopolymer platemakers and printers continue to embrace solvent washout technology for both conventional and digital photopolymer plates. Primary reasons include superior print results and print consistency resulting from gauge uniformity, equalized plate surface energy, more repeatable dot generation, and the ability to select from more photopolymer plate materials. Several … Read More...
Scoring or "shiny-lines" are a sometimes-controversial subject on what causes them. What is not controversial is that they can ruin expensive anilox rolls and cause waste in print jobs. As in most problematic situations, it is never one thing that causes or can eliminate the problem. When diagnosing the problem, it is also important to … Read More...
Basic Procedures for Ensuring Photopolymer Plate Quality Verifying quality of a new photopolymer plate is obviously an essential step of any successful printed conversion process. Advancements in plate reading devices now allow a QC check of a photopolymer plate to include mapping software of topology, plate shoulder width and angle to determine proper exposure and … Read More...
The Problem of Ink Micro-Foaming Although improvements in inks have reduced many ink foaming issues, continued increases in press speeds have worked against the elimination of this as a consideration press-side, especially with many process and metallic inks. Analysis as to the cause of this microfoam formation suggests that the air bubbles become entrapped as … Read More...
(Part 4 of a 5 part series) Maintaining the perfect dot is not easy, and to do so we must control several factors, one of which is knowing when the photopolymer plate has become worn to the point that it will have adverse effects on the printed product. But how open have you replaced costly … Read More...
(Part 3 of a 5 part series) Maintaining the perfect dot is not easy, and to do so we must control several factors, one of which is standard dot size. More specifically holding dots within a tonal patch to have the same diameter measurement, or at the very least, a similar measurement.In theory we would … Read More...
(Part 2 of a 5 part series) Maintaining the perfect dot is not easy, and to do so we must control several factors, one of which is slur. Slur is the elongation of a dot and can happen in both machine direction and across the web. However, slur is more common in the machine direction. … Read More...