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FlexoCam inspection system
Being able to measure a plate profile offers considerable advantages and the Troika FlexoCam is able to do this
By Rod Hayes
In recent years the UK has failed to embrace the benefits of flexible packaging. Quite how long this extravagance can continue is anybody's guess, but it cannot be economic for products such as instant coffee, drinking chocolate and a wide variety of other soft and powdered ingredients to continue to be packed in glass and cardboard tube containers.
There is a shift that no one would dispute, but it isn't on the scale or speed that is found overseas. Some purists suggest that the quality of the printed image is what is holding back the shift to an increased use of flexible packaging. Such a criticism smacks of hubris. Flexo is fit for the job, not only for flexible plastic based materials, but also for carton material.
To be fair, until recently it has been difficult to develop fully integrated closed loop colour management tools in the way that it has been with offset owing to the difficulty of defining the performance parameters of a flexo plate on a printing press.
More predictable
This is changing. At this year's Flexo 2005 demonstrations showed that thanks to digital imaging, either by using a photo resist, such as that used in the Cyrel system, or by direct engraving using CO2 lasers such as in Luscher ZED or ALE equipment,...