06.13.19
BOBST, along with its digital printing competence center Mouvent, is set to reveal a portfolio of world-leading innovations at Labelexpo Europe (Sept. 24-27, 2019).
Visitors will be able to see four complete digitalized production processes across a digital native press, equipped with water-based inks, a new world premiere UV/Flexo hybrid printing machine and a DigiFlexo press.
“We have recently revealed several truly ground-breaking innovations that will set new standards helping converters and brand owners improve time-to-market, guarantee color consistency and food packaging safety,” said Federico D’Annunzio, BOBST program manager Hybrid Printing. “It’s really exciting to bring these latest innovations together in one place, so attendees will be able to see for themselves the difference these innovations make, and the impact they could have on their own businesses.”
The latest innovations include Ink-on-Demand (IoD), Highly Automated Liquid (HAL) and DigiColor.
The IoD inking system replaces conventional inking reservoirs with a single rubber pipe that dispenses 30 grams of ink to the print unit. The system eliminates ink trays and chambered doctor blades and performs fully automated washing of the print unit in less than one minute.
To complement the IoD system, HAL is an off-line ink mixing station for producing Pantone colors from 14 basic inks and contains only one pump performing a pipette-style action to measure out the very small amounts of color needed.
DigiColor is the first ever inline “closed loop” color system that enables digital color adjustment to the target Delta E values during printing, at any speed, on any substrate, with any operator. It is a major step towards full-color digitization.
These innovations have paved the way for a new hybrid Flexo with “Mouvent Digital Technology Inside.” The hybrid is associated with total flexibility in high added value labels, with extremely short job setup and fast return on investment. It will be the most digitally automated press in the labels market, with the highest print quality and productivity.
Other machines on display include:
- M5 IoD/DigiColor. Color matching is simplified both in the REVO ECG and in spot colors environment. Changing inks in any press configuration takes a matter of seconds with no ink contact with the hands of the operator;
- LB702-WB digital label printer from Mouvent, using only 100% water-based Mouvent Inks, making it 100% free of VOCs and 100% food safe. The machine can run with up to 100 m/min on a broad range of substrates, from self-adhesive to wet-glue labelstock especially targeting applications where migration could be an issue, such as in the food industry. The LB702-WB’s print quality of 1,200 dpi leads to exceptional results on complex substrates such as textured natural wine label papers and many others. Being configured with 6 colors, the Mouvent water-based press allows for excellent ECG printing and Pantone matching;
- M1X inline UV flexo press, a partially fixed configuration machine, 370mm in web-width, developed with automation and connectivity in mind that can print and convert a wide variety of applications in one pass.
- Meanwhile, the BOBST M6 press is a combination of in-line UV Flexo, REVO Digital Flexo and the new V-Flower print unit, allowing for job changeovers in one minute, "on-the-fly" without stopping the press, and with up to 95% press up-time. The M6 will feature the DigiMount fully automated flexo plate mounting system, which features advanced electronics for improved speed and accuracy of plate mounting.