The engineering business of Uflex has launched Uflexo, an 8-color gearless CI flexo press with a registered coating unit, in India.
The gearless printing machine has been made in partnership with Italy-based Comiflex, which assisted Uflex with technical expertise. It is made available in two models with a running speed of 300m/min and 400m/min respectively.
Featuring a user-friendly interface, the press features automated splicing, in-line slitting, quick changeover and reduced bouncing of plates. It has been built on a thick steel frame of 120mm to reduce vibrations in the press. Uflexo can be customized with 6-10 printing stations, with a desired web width of up to three meters.
The CI flexo press uses patented technology that reduces solvent consumption for cleaning the press to almost 10 percent. Gianfranco Nespoli of Comiflex explained: ‘This results in tremendous savings for converters. Other important feature that improve the efficiency of Uflexo is directly mounted servo motors without a gearbox. Further, auto color registration and correction ensures equal temperature around the CI drum is maintained for quality printing.’
Further explaining the functions of the specially designed unwinder, which is turret-based and self-loading, Sanjay Malik Sabharwal, executive vice president of the engineering business at Uflex, said: ‘Considering the gauge variation in flexible films, the unwinder has been designed to have two bull gears which are independently driven so as to achieve any amount of skew. This gives us the ability to handle any film with accuracy. Servo motors drive bull gears independently or in tandem giving them flexibility of skew.’
Uflexo can be operated using an iPad. The engineering business of Uflex is at the infancy stage of introducing Internet of Things (IoT) for this press,, which will not only enable it to see any potential problem on the press at the customer site but also enable them to offer preventive maintenance to customers.
Though the first press will be used by the converting business of Uflex, the engineering business has already received three orders – two for the Indian market and one for overseas.
Ajay Tandon, president and chief executive officer, engineering and new product development, Uflex, said: ‘Uflex always runs new machines developed in-house at its converting business to ensure it works fine before sending it to other customers. We complement converters businesses with new technology development.’
Uflex believes this press has a lot of potential in the Indian market as well as overseas owing to the increasing demand of packaging. ‘Printing on stretched films is likely to be a popular trend which will make this press very relevant in times to come,’ concluded Tandon.
