Page 36 - Print 21 magazine Jul-Aug 2021

Technology Promotion
Screen presses on into
Corrugated since 2016 to develop a water-based inkjet printing solution capable of delivering high-speed throughput of 300 meters per minute at widths of up to 2.8 meters. The partners are creating the system in response to growing demand in the shelf- ready packaging and full colour corrugated board markets.
Likewise, in the folding carton segment, Screen is currently cooperating with UK company Inca Digital Printers, a member of its own corporate group, on the development of a single pass, water-based inkjet press. This system is being specially designed to support the transition to digital printing currently occurring in this segment.
Screen is also active in flexographic and letterpress CTP and recently released the PlateRite FX1524N/FX1200N and FX870N,
as new models for its thermal CTP series. These are available through Screen’s CTP partner Fujifilm, which also makes the Flenex photopolymer printing plates.
Scott adds: “We are taking a comprehensive, four-pronged approach to packaging – labels, flexibles, corrugated and folding carton. The resources and technologies go deep into Screen culture. We were the first with drop-on-demand high volume inkjet web pressed with the Truepress Jet 520 series, amongst the first for inkjet digital label presses, and we expect to be the leader in digitally- printed flexible packaging using water-based inkjet by the time
2022 comes around.” 21
flexible packaging
Announced last year, and now called the Truepress PAC 830F, the bold move into mid-web digital flexibles has been delayed due to Covid, but is on track for release later this year.
In keeping with Screen’s ‘Innovation for a sustainable World’ goal to become a 100 per cent sustainable company by 2030, the Truepress PAC 830F
is a water-based inkjet system for flexible packaging, working across an 830mm wide web, printing standard PET and OPP recyclable materials.
The Truepress PAC 830F delivers throughput at 75 meters per minute, or 4500 metres per hour, and is targeted at print runs of under
linear 4000 meters. Such runs can include variable data jobs, mock-ups, versioning, trial marketing, and other short-run work, in a responsive way that takes advantage of a digital workflow all the way to press, with no platemaking and mounting involved.
The company says that at a print resolution of 1200 x 1200dpi, and with Screen’s advanced colour management gained over 30 years in prepress supply, the “image quality on flexible substrates is superb”.
Short run jobs have always been inefficient with conventional flexographic and gravure presses because of lengthy and expensive
36 Print21 JULY/AUGUST 2021
Above
Digital flexible packaging: Truepress PAC830F
set-up, translating to a high level of time, cost and waste. The Truepress PAC 830F provides an immediate
boost to operability right throughout
a packaging plant, with the ability to accept and produce these small-lot jobs.
Screen GP Australia managing director Peter Scott says: “As the release date of the Truepress PAC 830F draws closer, we are getting excited about the prospects. It does put us right at the heart of a major part of the global packaging sector, but our experience in labels and flexo CTP has provided Screen with a good grounding. We see the PAC 830F in
a different light to, say the L350UV digital label presses. It is more likely to provide increased lateral services to established leading packaging concerns, more so than start-ups and SMEs, but who knows, with digital anything can happen.”
Corrugated and
folding cartons
In the corrugated packaging segment, Screen has been working with German company BHS