Corrugated box is closely related to our life, production of a kind of ordinary paper packaging products, corrugated box printing quality is not only related to the appearance of corrugated box quality, but also affects the sales prospects of the packaged products and the image of commodity production enterprises. Therefore, it is particularly important to analyze how to improve the surface printing effect of corrugated boxes, how to choose the right printing process and further reduce the processing cost of cardboard boxes. In this Cheng Xiaobian will discuss these aspects.
The processing technology of corrugated cardboard is mainly divided into two categories
1. The corrugated paperboard production process is widely used, has the advantages of large production batch, large carton forming volume, good quality of corrugated and so on. The corrugated cardboard produced by this process is usually made into cartons by water-based printing, slotting, gluing, forming and other processes. The cartons produced by this process are mainly used for transport packaging.
The production process of corrugated board is to print face paper first, and then mount with corrugated core paper and board. The corrugated cardboard produced by this process is usually packed into boxes by die cutting indentation and nail sticking. The carton produced by this process has good molding quality and good surface treatment effect. The cartons produced by this process can be used for sales packaging. Conventional carton printing methods mainly include flexo printing, offset printing and screen printing. The conventional process of flexographic printing of corrugated boxes is printed directly on corrugated board, using water-based ink, so some people also refer to the process as watermarking. Flexographic direct printing has the following characteristics:
(1) large format. The maximum width of a wide flexographic press is 2.5m~2.8m.
(2) Low price. Flexo printing resistance is high, can be reused; Ink prices are also lower. (3) can be linked production, such as printing, grooving, indentation, binding (bonding) box, bale, etc., can be completed in one machine.
(4) The strength of the carton is reduced less. Because flexo printing is light press printing, it has little impact on the strength of corrugated board. (5) The printing accuracy is not high. The number of conventional offset printing plus network cable is 175 lines/inch, while the number of flexo printing carton plus network cable is 35 lines/inch ~65 lines/inch, which belongs to the low precision printing method and is most suitable for printing text line drafts. Although the printing quality of four-color image has been improved in recent years, there are still limitations.
(6) platemaking is easy and difficult, text line manuscript platemaking is easy, four-color image platemaking is more difficult. (7) The printing quality is not stable, mainly reflected in the printing ink color is not easy to control. Flexible direct printing technology is suitable for the first kind of carton production process, at present, it is widely used in our carton factory.
Corrugated carton Conventional offset printing corrugated carton adopts the indirect printing method, that is, the carton surface paper is printed, and then the printed surface paper is mounted on the corrugated board.
Because of the high resolution of the PS version, it can print very fine printing patterns. At present, our country used for sale packaging high-grade corrugated carton the vast majority of are offset printing products. Offset printing corrugated carton has the following characteristics:
(1) is not suitable for the use of cardboard linked production line, only suitable for the use of single-side corrugated machine, the production efficiency is low.
(2) Limited format, generally smaller than flexo carton format.
(3) The printing product is very fine, and the number of network cables can reach 150 lines/inch ~200 lines/inch.
(4) Easy plate making, PS plate routine plate making.
(5) Surface finishing can be carried out, such as film coating, glazing, etc.
(6) High printing cost.
(7) The printing quality is stable.
Screen printing corrugated box
screen printing corrugated box process is direct printing. Because the ink rate of screen plate is proportional to the hole distance of the screen, so the resolution of screen printing is not high, the image accuracy is low, the number of conventional network cable is 60 lines/inch ~80 lines/inch. Screen printing corrugated boxes have the following characteristics:
(1) not suitable for linkage production line, low production efficiency.
(2) The printing format can be large or small.
(3) Printing can be completed before mounting and packing, or printing can be carried out after mounting and packing.
(4) Suitable for printing non-fine products. The ink color of screen printing is thick, so its color saturation is high, the visual effect is strong, especially the field, the effect is better.
(5) Plate making is easy and the cost of plate making is low.
(6) Low printing cost.
(7) The printing quality is stable.