Page 33 - Print 21 Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

Digital Printing
That lower resolution does have an upside, however. “With inkjet, you are looking at a speed advantage,” says Crowley. “What you will generally find with inkjet is that to achieve the higher press speeds, they need to trade something for this, and that is generally print resolutions.”
As an example, Xeikon’s PX3000 Panther inkjet press has a print resolution of 600x600dpi but
a top speed of 50 metres per minute, whereas its CX3 Cheetah toner press can print at maximum 30 metres per minute – but at 1200x3600dpi. “It’s a lot quicker to lay down three hundred and sixty thousand dots with inkjet than it is to print more than four million dots with toner,” says Crowley.
“If the expectation or requirement from the customer is the best in quality, then a dry toner press is
the best option. If the customer has longer print runs and does not have the same high resolution and quality requirements, but also needs the additional characteristics of what UV inkjet has to offer, then an inkjet press will be the ideal fit,” he adds.
Safety first
In the eco-conscious world we live in, it is important to consider the effect that printing technologies will have on the environment. All businesses today are under pressure to ensure that they are green, and that any waste they produce does not have an adverse environmental impact.
The greenest options for printing are dry toners and water-based inks. “The biggest advantage of both of those is that neither one produces any dangerous chemicals
or waste,” says Crowley. “Water- based inkjet sits in a similar space, because aside from the pigments or resins used, the byproduct is fundamentally water.
“With UV-curable inkjet products, you have a completely different set of byproducts to work with in the manufacturing process, the curing process, and the disposal of things like canisters and containers.”
Food safety and regulatory compliance is a similar area of concern. “A lot of printing technologies are used in food packaging as well, so there are sustainability and compliance issues there,” says Crowley.
“Getting a better understanding of what market you’re trying to secure will help you drive part of the decision process as to what technology you take on board.” – Trevor Crowley, ANZ sales manager, Xeikon
Dry toners are among the safest technologies for food packaging. The biggest issue with UV technologies is migration: some
of the initiators that they use can migrate through certain materials if not cured correctly, so if using UV, you need to consider things like physical barriers when you are manufacturing a label or a package in order to minimise migration and contamination.
“Water-based is the only inkjet technology that has a strong position around minimisation of contamination for compliance,” says Crowley.
Application,
application, application
Ultimately, says Crowley, the decision whether to invest in toner or inkjet comes down to your target markets. “The question is what market do I
sit in?” he says. “What best suits the application and the customers that I’m talking to? You may think you want the speed of inkjet to print wine labels. Well, that may not work from a quality perspective– you may want to look more at a dry toner application for that.
“You may want a 12 to 18-month life cycle, a durable application. Well, though some toner has good light fastness, it would not achieve that sort of outcome – inkjet would be better for that. Inkjet has a lot of applications in the durables space.
It tends to work well with issues like scuff and resistance, and paper stocks are where you’d tend to have trouble with it,” says Crowley.
While durables are inkjet’s forte, finer or higher-resolution work is where dry toner excels. “Anything that goes under the sink, anything that is in a workshop or an industrial application, realistically what you would be looking at is an inkjet technology,” says Crowley. “On
the other hand, if you are in food
or pharmaceuticals or wine and beverage, you will be looking at toner.
“Not every solution can be everything to everybody, so mapping out what markets you’re targeting can help you find the right solution for your digital applications.” 21
Opposite:
Printed film coming out of a Xeikon CX3 dry toner press
Where ink meets toner
HP Indigo digital presses make use of
liquid toner or ElectroInk, which is printed differently from both dry toner and inkjet, says Mark Daws, director, labels and packaging at Currie Group, which distributes HP Indigo digital presses in Australia.
“HP Indigo’s ElectroInk has electrically- charged pigmented particles suspended in a liquid carrier, as compared to dry toner. We control using electrical fields where we can place the particles,” he says.
As well as high resolution, HP Indigo offers other visual advantages over dry toner and inkjet, says Daws. “Toner can give a glossy sheen to the product, and you can also get dot gain due to particle displacement, so it’s not as sharp, while
inkjet has a higher build effect – it can present with an unnatural-looking thick layer. Indigo avoids both of these.”
According to Daws, HP Indigo can be used for any and all applications. “We
can print on any media, be it in-mould, pressure-sensitive, shrink sleeves, film and so on, where other technologies struggle. There’s really no limitations to material, and it maintains the same level of colour and quality.
“It has some of the highest ratings for chemical durability and colour stability. We can also introduce strengthening enhancers to literally bullet-proof the inks, making them scuff-resistant, chemical-resistant and heat-resistant,” he says.
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