Corrugated carton color printing

Corrugated carton packaging has been widely used in the industry along with the continuous development and progress of society and has become an indispensable part of modern people’s lives. Consumers' requirements for packaging have also increased with the continuous improvement of living standards, and the function of corrugated boxes has also changed from transport packaging to sales packaging.

For this change, corrugated box printing technology has also undergone a very big change. In the process, corrugated box printing generally goes through the following stages:

1. Monochrome printing of simple text or lines.
This period was mainly limited by the printing technology: the use of printing presses suitable for water-washable inks. This kind of printing press has low printing precision, the ink needs several rollers to make uniform, and the drying time after printing is longer, which is not suitable for high-speed printing. The printing plate is a hand-engraved rubber plate with poor engraving accuracy and the printing effect is not ideal. . The content of printing patterns are mostly simple text lines. After printing, they play a simple role in marking, but they do not have a decorative effect.

2. Color printing of simple text lines.
Most of this period is a three-color water-based printing press, which can achieve higher-precision overprinting. The printing ink is a water-based printing ink, which has fast drying speed, full color, and good printing effect. Printing plates are still mainly hand-engraved, but thicker photopolymer plates have begun to be used. The printed pattern is just a few simple lines, patches, and simple dot patterns. At this time, the printed pattern is not limited to the product's logo, but it is to be given the function of sales packaging through the color printing decoration of corrugated box packaging. However, its performance content is not very wide due to factors such as printing presses.

3, half tone pattern in the direct print reproduction of corrugated boxes.
The printer in this period is a high-precision three- or four-color printer. The number of anilox rollers is generally 250 lines/inch, and the reproduction effect of some halftone patterns is better. The printing plates are all made of photosensitive resin plates, and C, M, Y, K four-color (or three-color, K-short, or other color plates) versions are produced by computer color separation, and the color printing of corrugated boxes is primarily achieved through the superposition of ink colors. The printed pattern is a number of colored objects that can better represent the contents of the corrugated box, making the corrugated box as a sales package placed on the container. Due to limitations in the accuracy of printing presses and the number of printing colors, the appearance of layering is not very strong.

4, color preprint.
Color preprinting is direct web printing. Its multi-color set (4-8 colors), high performance, and high precision can be used to create beautiful patterns. Its ink is alcoholic ink, drying speed, bright color, strong expression. For the glossiness of the surface, a layer of varnish can also be added to make the printed pattern bright and bright and hard to wear. The printing plate is a thinner resin plate, and the level of the pattern can be completely reproduced through the fine color separation processing. The content of the print design is also more diversified, and the color is more abundant. It becomes a real sales package, and it has the effect of beautifying the goods and promoting sales.

Corrugated carton color printing is its condition. First of all, the coloring of corrugated cartons is a market requirement.
1. Consumers increasingly prefer high quality printed packaging. High-quality printed packaging gives consumers a sense of pleasure when they shop, and has a sense of trust and confidence in the product.

2. The design of corrugated boxes is changing. The design requirements can more demonstrate the content of the product and beautify the product. Today's corrugated box design has also used high-quality patterns to better represent the design's creativity and content through the perfect representation of the pattern level. This corporate culture is promoted so that the products have affinity with consumers and can stimulate consumers' desire to purchase.

3. Improve the positioning of products in the market through the design of high-quality designs. High-quality pattern printing indirectly reflects high-quality products. This is a kind of bedding for the merchant's product positioning. And can make the product's internal packaging, packaging and transportation packaging organically, and strengthen the product market awareness.

4. The colorization of corrugated cartons helps improve the anti-counterfeiting capabilities of product packaging. Through the professional design company design, professional plate-making company produced a high-quality color corrugated boxes produced by printing plates and high-level carton printing factories. The counterfeiters obtained plate-making data by scanning cartons, and then small corrugated boxes. The possibility of manufacturers printing imitations is very small. Domestic fraud is still very rampant, and many of our companies have suffered huge losses. Most companies are making big mistakes in the small packaging of products to prevent the persecution of counterfeit products. However, most of the small packages use offset or gravure printing, and the probability of being counterfeited for technical reasons is large. However, if certain measures are adopted in the printing of the outer packaging carton, it is a short cut for product anti-counterfeiting.

Secondly, the production of a high-quality color corrugated box is a systematic project. It is premised on high-quality flexographic prepress separation, high-precision printing presses, printing inks, printing pad/double-sided tapes, substrates, and suitable printing process conditions in each of the printing processes. Get coordinated.

The specific production requirements for coloring corrugated cartons are as follows:

1. The requirements of the press.
Requires high-precision printing machinery processing production. In particular, the precision of the plate cylinder is high, and the general concentricity requirement is: TIR ≤ +15 μm.

The press is required to have a high quality ceramic anilox roll. The anilox roller is required to have stable and uniform ink transfer performance, a higher number of anilox roller lines, a reasonable cable angle, and excellent wear resistance, capable of accurately providing a quantitative ink to the printing plate, and perfectly reproducing the printing product dot layer level. .

The printing press should have a high overprint accuracy and a stable tension control system so that each color sequence can accurately represent the pattern during overprinting and overlaying.

Easy to operate, responsive and stable pressure adjustment system. The pressure adjustment of flexographic printing is a very important operation link. Only with the cooperation of a reliable printing pressure adjustment system can the pressure between the anilox roll and the plate roller, plate roller, and the substrate be adjusted to the best state to print out. High quality prints.

2. Printing ink requirements.
Printing inks require accurate hue and meet international or national quality standards. And require that each batch of hue should be consistent. Select ink properties that are suitable for the substrate and meet the conditions of use of the package.

The ink should ensure high color intensity, so that the use of high screen anilox roller, the lower the amount of ink transfer when the color is accurate, bright, full.

Reasonable drying speed. The drying speed must be determined in accordance with the characteristics of the substrate and the printing speed of the printing press.

The general nature of the ink requirements. The ink has stable physical and chemical properties. Such as water resistance, lightfastness and so on.

3. Printing plate requirements.
To obtain a high-quality corrugated box, the printing plate must be a photosensitive resin plate (ie, a flexographic plate). The current flexo editions are all developing towards thin editions, and their patterns are more powerful.

Plates should have good ink transfer properties. The plate should be able to transfer the ink from the anilox roller to the surface of the substrate smoothly and evenly.

The printing plate should have reasonable relief height and dot shape of the dot to ensure that the small dots and fine lines of the yin and yang characters are clearly visible.

Plates should have good, uniform hardness. To ensure the smooth transfer of ink and controlled changes in dot network.

4. High-level printing operation technology is an indispensable condition for obtaining high-quality printing products. A high-level operator should have a thorough understanding of the printing equipment, printing inks, printing plates, and process conditions under different conditions, and be able to be flexible. He is always an active and active subject throughout the entire production system.

At present, there are many companies in the carton packaging industry has gradually embarked on the colorization of the road, but with Europe, the United States and even Southeast Asia there is still a certain gap. With the continuous development of domestic carton packaging production lines and various ancillary projects, we have every reason to believe that domestic color corrugated cartons will rapidly increase their popularity.