Countdown to Drupa: Asahi brings extreme quality to flexo printing

Brussels, Belgium-based Asahi Photoproducts, a pioneer in flexographic photopolymer plate development, will showcase a full range of flexographic printing plate solutions to Drupa 2016.

18 Mar 2016 | By Dibyajyoti Sarma

Asahi is in Hall 11/A60 at the show.

The company is known for its unique Pinning Technology for Clean Transfer, enabling kiss touch printing that delivers improved ink transfer, reduces ink filling at the mid-tone area, thus reducing dot gain, and results in fewer cleaning intervals for improved overall equipment effectiveness.

“We will be showing our full portfolio of flexo plate solutions as well as some exciting new products. We will also have plenty of real-life award-winning examples that demonstrate the quality our plate solutions can bring to flexo print. All of this adds up to ensured viability of flexo technology over the long term plus more production efficiencies for flexographic operations,” David Galton, sales director of Asahi Photoproducts Europe, said.

Pinning Technology for Clean Transfer
Asahi offers a full range of flexographic plates featuring Pinning Technology for Clean Transfer. This has been engineered to transfer all remaining ink to the print substrate due to the photopolymer plates having a lower surface energy than other plates on the market. Not only does this deliver stunning graphical quality, but it also improves overall production efficiencies due to reduced makeready waste and fewer press wash-ups.

ASAHI'S PLATE LINW
AWP-DEF water-washable plates, which produces superior results compared to traditional technologies. The plate delivers a level of graphic reproduction with more complete ink transfer and a wider tonal range. With its solvent-free plate-making process, there is no need for high temperature processes and the result is a perfect, dimensionally stable plate that ensures high quality print registration without colour shift.
AFP–TOP is a premium digital flexo plate designed primarily for wide-web film printing applications giving the printer a broader colour gamut with soft tonal shades fading out to zero. With superb press stability characteristics, it is able to consistently reproduce and print small dots and is able to print vignettes that run to zero. It delivers an average cost savings of 18% due to improved overall equipment effectiveness, compared to standard digital flexo plates.
AFP–TSP is for paper printing applications. These medium-hard plates are tailor-made for paper and higher quality corrugated board applications with water-based inks. TSP plates are compatible with water, solvent and most UV-curable inks, enabling all converters to benefit from Pinning Technology for Clean Transfer. These plates also facilitate homogeneous ink transfer in solid and line work, and better control of ink trapping when different colour inks are printed on top of each other.

New at Drupa
“We are not resting on our laurels at Asahi,” Galton said. “We’ll be bringing both new products and new concepts to Drupa.”

These include:

A new AFP-DCV digital flexo plate, designed to produce Deep ColourVibrance prints for water- and solvent-based inks in flexible packaging applications. Deep ColourVibrance is delivered by using a unique polymer solution, giving the best balance between highlight dots and deep vibrant colours within one plate.

There will also be a new AWP-DEW plate solution, incorporating the renowned quality properties of AWP DEF plates with the addition of a faster plate processing speed, making this plate ideal for larger format flexible packaging operations with higher plate throughput. It has the same consistent plate dimensional stability vital for fixed colour palette printing, delivering significant quality and benefits of overall equipment effectiveness.

TechNova Imaging Systems represents Asahi in India.

Drupa 2016 will take place from 31 May to 10 June 2016 at Dusseldorf, Germany. PrintWeek India is a cooperating media partner at the show. The team led by Noel D’cunha, Rushikesh Aravkar and Monica Rohra will be present on all days of the show.