Until now, pad printing has only been able to display different levels of brightness and colour gradients, as known from photography, with a great deal of effort and usually with unstable results. With the help of print screens, this representation could be simulated at least for the human eye. Thanks to the Tampoprint development of laser-structurable clichés such as the intaglio cliché and the development of 3D microstructuring such as with the Cliché Laser Xi, colour and brightness gradients as well as four-colour print motifs can now be convincingly represented.
Without pad printing and the sophisticated technology of Tampoprint - the inventors of industrial pad printing - many everyday products would not be what they are today: the numbers on the clock face, the letters on computer keyboards, the faces of the Playmobil figures and Barbie dolls popular with children or the measuring scale of baby bottles - many things only become products thanks to the machines and technical components developed by Tampoprint. In order to always offer its customers state-of-the-art technical solutions, the market-leading manufacturer of special machines for pad printing and laser engraving is constantly developing new solutions and accessories in order to offer coherent concepts from a single source. With developments such as the Cliché Laser Xi, jointly developed with the Swiss company Lüscher AG, the specialists from Korntal-Münchingen are constantly opening up new fields of application and increasingly effective production possibilities for their customers.
Self developed cliché meets precise laser engraving
Tampoprint has developed a new type of printing plate, the intaglio cliché, for optimum direct imaging with Cliché Laser Xi. The material reacts highly sensitively to laser radiation, offers good mechanical resistance and a long service life and delivers reproducible results at all times. The new cliché is based on a thin steel plate. This is followed by an adhesive layer, a carrier material and a final coating specially developed by Tampoprint.
Thanks to its fully digital imaging capability using a laser process, this novel printing plate has the potential to replace conventional imaging processes. This opens up a new spectrum of application fields for users of the printing process. For example, the in-house development from Tampoprint could replace the polymer clichés used to date. It requires neither a repro film nor exposure or further steps that are required in conventional cliché production.
The special quality of the intaglio cliché becomes clear in combination with the direct laser engraving of the Cliché Laser Xi: up to now, pad printing has not been able to produce different levels of brightness and colour gradients as known from photography. However, this representation could be simulated with the aid of print grids. Thanks to the development of laser-structurable clichés such as the intaglio cliché and the development of 3D microstructuring as with the Cliché Laser Xi, colour and brightness gradients as well as four-colour print motifs can now be displayed convincingly. In addition, this processing method can be used to display filigree lines and screened elements with outer lines as well as a depth of individual image elements or the combination of line and screen engravings and to achieve optimal, repeatable print results. To be able to use the machine to its full potential, Tampoprint recommends the use of the intaglio cliché.
The advantage of cliché production with direct laser engraving can also be clearly seen in the workflow: Until now, the production of conventional clichés required at least eight work steps: From data preparation, varnish coating and imaging to etching, decoating and cleaning - numerous steps were necessary but at the same time offered plenty of scope for quality fluctuations and thus varying print quality. "Direct laser engraving now reduces the workflow to four steps, consisting of data preparation, imaging, cleaning and final inspection. This drastically reduces the manual effort and thus automatically ensures much more process reliability", explains Stephan Berger, Head of Development at Tampoprint AG.
System solution from cliché material, laser, process and control
The Cliché Laser Xi is characterized by a compact design. It is based on a flat bed transport system that is moved step by step under an oscillating laser head. A sophisticated cliché holding system ensures that inaccurate positioning, especially with multi-color printing, is now a thing of the past with magnetic cliché material in the exposure process. This means that less adjustment work on the printing press is required later. The exact reproducibility of the clichés through this technology also drastically reduces machine set-up times: once lasered, the cliché production can be repeated at any time with the exact same parameters and thus achieve constant printing results.
A distinctive feature of laser technology is the particularly high resolution: motifs can be produced with up to 5080 dpi or 150 lines / cm. This ensures a high level of detail reproduction and the realization of the finest structures and fonts in the later printing process. Even individual halftone dots can now be varied in width and depth and later achieve a homogeneous and detailed print result.
Thanks to the Cliché Laser Xi, clichés can even be illustrated regardless of format and perforations. For example, the laser is used effectively for imaging record or steel clichés. A laser-sensitive layer is removed here and the cliché is then chemically etched. For steel clichés, indirect exposure by laser is recommended as an alternative to light-sensitive masking varnish for optimal results.
Development and service perfectly tailored to customer needs
Especially users from the decorative sector with a high throughput of orders per day and frequently changing motifs such as manufacturers of baby articles, toys, advertising materials, cosmetics or automobiles benefit from the interaction of the system solution: "The baby article market in particular is an interesting area for the cliché laser Xi. Products such as pacifiers or drinking bottles are decorated with a lot of effort, and the individual decors often alternate. The number of printed products per day and therefore the number of clichés required per day is also very high for pad printing, "explains Dietmar Scholz, Sales Manager Pad Printing Machines and Laser at Tampoprint AG.
The purchase of a Cliché Laser Xi is particularly worthwhile for customers who have such a high production output that they need more than three clichés per day. Internationally operating customers in particular can use it to produce the urgently needed printing forms quickly and independently of logistics. For example, prototypes for newly developed applications can also be manufactured and new fields of application opened up.
Service for the customer clearly in focus
Despite the innovative developments from Tampoprint, the focus of the company is less on the sale of technical equipment, but rather on the sensible setup of the complete processes and optimal results for the customer. Tampoprint not only offers sophisticated high-tech machines and accessories for almost every challenge, but also the right service for every customer need: Also for smaller companies that are looking for reliable and precise solutions, but for whom the acquisition of a cliché laser is necessary Missing quantities and therefore not profitable, Tampoprint has the right solution:
You can purchase print-ready clichés directly from Tampoprint and thus also use the digitized imaging technology. With repeatable print jobs, they receive ready-to-print clichés, which all have the same quality in terms of position and depth, and also benefit from precise results in the printing process.
