Two or three things that UV inks should know

Ink roller, blanket or resin plate

The use of UV inks or UV varnish may cause swelling of the general printing ink roller, blanket, or resin plate. Swelling may cause peeling or cracking of the surface. Select the appropriate or special UV blanket and resin plate. It is very important.

Many UV ink suppliers will recommend a standard range. For example, a nitrocellulose or nitrified material used in blankets may be compatible with oils, UV inks, or coatings. Natural rubber and polymeric ethane materials are swollen and cannot be applied to UV inks and coating oils.

Rubber blankets made of EPDM are particularly suitable for UV inks and coatings, but may not be suitable for general ink-based inks. EPDM blankets, in particular, cannot use petroleum-derived lotions, and special lotions should be purchased. In the same way, choosing the ink roller of the printing press is based on this principle. It is not always possible to alternately use UV inks and general oil inks. If the ink needs to be changed, it must be cleaned very cleanly to remove any chemicals that may remain.

UV tube

The number and intensity of UV lamps are sufficient to completely dry the UV ink or varnish of the printed product, depending on the printing speed, the degree of ink film thickness, and the color of the ink. General installation of UV lamps will consider the type of printing machine and the printed product to install the appropriate UV lamp.

BASF's UV inks and coating oils are designed to use the appropriate standard for "industrial medium-pressure mercury lamps" or "microwave H-bulbs". If the first single color (such as cyan) is used to print a standard ink film thickness (1.20-1.40 g/m2) at a speed of 100 m/min, two 120 W/cm medium-pressure mercury lamps should be used. If the color density is high and the dark color is printed on one or two superimposed colors, the overall difficulty of drying is particularly increased because the UV light is quickly absorbed by the deep pigment of the ink. The difficulty of drying four-color UV inks is generally magenta, yellow, cyan, and black. Therefore, the sequence for UV color printing should be black, cyan, yellow, magenta. Some blending colors are also very difficult to dry, as green is made of yellow and cyan tones; opaque colors are also difficult because it reflects off all UV light. The same metallic, gold, and silver colors have the same problem. UV mercury lamp life is limited, usually the instructions will tell us about its maintenance and life, as well as the replacement time.

Too old aging lamps can't dry UV ink or coating oil can cause printing troubles. Most instructions in the UV lamp indicate that about 1,000 hours are required to replace the UV lamp. In fact, if you feel that you cannot dry the printed matter at the normal printing speed, you must consider replacing the UV lamp so as not to affect the overall printing operation.

Reflector

If no reflector is equipped with approximately 80% of the UV light, the diffuser does not act on the print. Therefore, the UV lamp must be installed with a reflector that focuses and focuses on the direction of the print. The importance of the reflector cannot be ignored.

The reflector must be cleaned and maintained. It is best to maintain the same features as the new one. Some paper dust or dust attached to the reflector will affect the efficacy of the UV lamp reflection. Normally, UV lamp time is not used. The UV lamp cover should be closed to prevent dust.