Prepress

Flint Group exhibits nyloprint NExT Exposure for the first time at SDW

Tuesday 09. July 2013 - Visitors of the Security Document World Conference are impressed by the new UV LED-exposure technology for letterpress printing plates

From 21 to 23 May 2013 this year’s Security Document World Conference (SDW) took place in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, London (Great Britain). With good reason, the organisers claim the affiliated exhibition to be one of the largest and best attended in the world of security printing. Celebrating its seventh anniversary, the event brought record numbers once again with about 100 exhibitors and more than 1,500 visitors.
During the event, Flint Group Flexographic Products presented its printing plate portfolio for security and banknote printing. Especially for the production of passports, stamps or bank notes, guilloche patterns and micro texts are used, which require the highest possible precision. With a resolution of up to 10,000 dpi nyloprint WS and WS Digital printing plates are ideally suited for such extremely high printing requirements.
The highlight of Flint Group Flexographic Products’ exhibit was nyloprint NExT, the new exposure for letterpress plates. The nyloprint NExT exposure is targeted to the security and banknote printing as well as the high-end segment of labels, tubes, cups and can printing. UV-A LEDs of the latest generation (> 250 mW/cm²) allow a more precise image reproduction of the finest relief elements and gradations. Compared with conventional light sources, the high-power LEDs enable a virtual 1:1 copy of the digital data onto the printing plate, thus optimising the reproduction accuracy of the digital data. The exposing speed of the LED bars can be customised to specifically define dot shape and shoulder angle. Additionally, the finest highlights and open shadows increase the image contrast.
The constant UV output of the UV-A LEDs of the nyloprint NExT exposure results in among the highest long-term repeatability, especially for rework during the complete life cycle. In this application, it shows clear advantages against the conventional tube exposure as well. The temperature control of the exposure bed ensures consistent production conditions. The new exposure unit is suitable for processing every high quality photopolymer letterpress plates up to a maximum size of 1200 x 960 mm (47.2″ x 37.8″). As a standard, the exposure unit will be offered with UV-A LEDs and can be provided with additional UVA tubes on request.
The new technology can be used for all digital letterpress plates, regardless of plate thickness and format. It is compatible with all standard prepress and HD software and can be easily implemented into the existing digital workflow.