The anilox is considered to be the heart of the printing press. We advise that you treat it with the utmost care in order to create the longest possible lifetime. How? Follow the instructions in the free Anilox Use & Care Guide!
The anilox roll/sleeve is considered to be the heart of the flexographic printing press. It transfers a determined amount of ink onto the printing plate. This requires a high level of precision. It is of the utmost importance that an anilox roll/sleeve is treated in the best possible way. When used/ cared properly the lifetime of an anilox roll/sleeve is 2 years or even longer. A few simple steps can help you achieve this or even increase the lifetime of your anilox!
A few simple steps, like covering the body of the anilox with a wrap or covering blanked can protect the surface when you install the anilox into the press. Especially the sides of an anilox should be treated with care, because the ceramic used on the anilox is not impact resistant and chips easily. Chipped off ceramic can cause many problems, once inside the printing mechanism. This guide gives specific advice for mounting anilox sleeves.
During normal use and to ensure a long life and high print quality, anilox rolls/sleeves must be cleaned immediately after a press run to remove the ink. If ink is allowed to dry, the build-up of deposits inside the cell decreases the amount of ‘fluid’ ink to come out of the cell and be transferred onto the plate. And because your volume transfer is not consistent, your print quality will become inconsistent too. By using a regular cleaning procedure, you can easily avoid this.
Apex International is the global leader of anilox, glue set and metering products and print maintenance solutions. Apex’ value proposition is founded on developing solutions to satisfy the complex challenges of our customers every day. We have 120 technical professionals in the field. There is always somebody close by who speaks your language. Contact us!
VIV has started to put Smart Digital Flexo (7C ECG / Fixet palette printing) to practice, and results look promising. "We are now able to produce 15 jobs on this one press per day, instead of just 5. SDF saves us a huge amount of time in changeovers and set up times. Having this technology in place, and having found the right suppliers and partners like Apex, who also want to take flexography to a whole new level – to expand our capabilities in this field, even jobs of just 1,000 meters run length will be within our reach. This will open up a whole new range of business opportunities.”
“As we try to find ways to push the limits of technology so we can develop new products, we need suppliers to help us accomplish that. Apex is a perfect example of such a company we now partner with. Their experts and our technicians will be able to put their skills and knowledge together and make giant leaps forward.”
