Carton Packaging Application Laser Engraving Technology

The carton packaging industry is a mature industry in the coastal areas, especially in the Pearl River Delta region. It is the closest to the most advanced production technology in the world. The carton packaging industry has a production scale above it. It started in the early 1980s in the Pearl River Delta and 10 times later than the Mainland. Year -20 years. The carton packaging industry in the Pearl River Delta region matured in the mid-1990s. After fifteen years of rapid development, Hong Kong businessmen, Taiwanese businessmen and local entrepreneurs boldly introduced foreign corrugated paperboard production lines and carton production lines, and absorbed and digested them until they fully grasped advanced foreign production. technology. It can be said that the production of corrugated cartons in the Pearl River Delta has made tremendous contributions to the entire carton production and processing technology in China. The development of the Yangtze River Delta region started earlier and it was really developed later than the Pearl River Delta. Because of drawing on the successful development experience of the Pearl River Delta, it took a lot of detours. At present, the total production volume of the corrugated box packaging industry in the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta accounts for over 60% of the national carton packaging, and the production technology is also relatively advanced.

In the late 1990s, with the successful development of laser engraving technology, corrugated carton packaging plates gradually applied laser engraving technology. In fact, corrugated carton packaging is divided into two categories, one is sales packaging, and the other is transportation packaging. Sales packaging generally belongs to the inner packaging and meets consumers during the sales process, such as toothpaste, soap, cigarettes (one package and one package). Transportation packaging generally belongs to the outer packaging, such as: whole box of toothpaste, soap, cigarette packaging, basically not meet with consumers in the sales process, its main role is to facilitate storage and transportation. In addition, air conditioners, color TV sets, refrigerators, and rice cookers are in between the transportation package and the sales package. The printing requirement is about 60 lines, the transportation package is generally about 40 lines, and the sales package is 80 lines or more in color offset printing. According to relevant department statistics, more than 90% of cartons in China belong to transport packaging, and most of them are produced by carton printing equipment.

Laser engraving machine is a high-tech product in the world today. Its optical, mechanical, and electrical integration technology is very high. Laser engraving has an efficient, accurate, and clear automatic engraving function. The output power of a laser engraving machine is only 900W. Practice has proved that laser energy enhancement is energy-saving processing and environmental protection processing. The laser auto-engraving plate-making can achieve the printing effect of 40-60 lines, and the manual plate-making is below 40 lines. Laser-engraving plate making completely replaces hand-carved plates. Due to the low cost of laser engraving, only one quarter of the cost of the resin version is available. At present, the carton industry generally uses laser-engraving plate-making and resin plates as corrugated carton packaging and printing plates. There are many laser processing equipments in the market, and the resin plates generally use BASF and TDR plates. Now laser engraving plate and hand-engraving plate making, resin version to do a comparative analysis, for the majority of the industry friends.

Comparison of laser engraving and manual engraving

Laser-engraving plate-making is completely imitating and optimizing the manual plate-making design. After the laser-engraving plate-making was brought to the market, in the ten years, the engraving has a 0.3-mm gradient through software upgrade, and the light failure at the corner of the sculpture is automatically compensated. Increase the speed of automatic engraving, basically eliminating hand-engraved plates. In addition, laser engraving, completely eliminate engraving errors, artificial engraving inevitable inaccurate engraving errors, good manuscripts, hand-carved when a mistake, the whole block scrap, if found not always lead to the entire batch of cartons scrapped. Laser engraving is the use of software, the original input automatic engraving, there is no engraving errors. In the Pearl River Delta, more than 20,000 hand-sculpted plate making practitioners in the Pearl River Delta have basically disappeared and all have switched.

Comparison of Laser Engraving Plates and Resin Plates

· Low cost of one-time laser-engraving platemaking, a set of equipment for 2 meters of photosensitive flexible drying machine of not less than 400,000 yuan, and a laser engraving machine of 4 million;

· The resin plate production cost is high, the average price of the resin plate in the PRD region is 1.25 yuan/in2, and the laser engraving plate is 0.32 yuan/in2. Although the mass production of the resin plate can reduce the production cost to 0.90 yuan/in2, it is not any enterprise. Can do it. Even if the cost can still be much higher than laser plate making;

· Laser engraved plate making is low-energy, non-polluting, and the resin plate processing is highly polluting. Although the plate making solution recovery device is better than none, the recovery rate of the plate making solution cannot be 100%. Pollution is unavoidable.

· The laser engraving size can be infinitely large, the production site only needs more than ten square meters, and the resin plate printing machine working site can not be less than 40 square meters, the production smells pungent, the production site must be separated independently, in addition, processing Size is limited by model. 2 meters of photosensitive flexographic printing machine, only to produce resin version within 2 meters;

· The laser-engraving plate-making adopts a 0.3-mm slope, and the durability performance is basically similar to that of a resin plate. Only the resin number below the No. 7 character prints better than the laser engraving plate.

Laser engraving and photosensitive resin plate in the practical application of corrugated box packaging industry

At present, in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, economically developed areas, photosensitive resin plates and laser engraving plates are popular. The resin plates are highly flexible. Indigo is clear. In the carton industry, 30% of the market is occupied by transport packages and laser engraving. Platemaking fully accepts that the original hand-engraving plate making accounts for 70% of the market. 90% of corrugated cartons belong to the transport packaging. The requirements for printing inks are generally about 40 lines, and the carton printing machines can only reach 80 lines or less. Over 80 lines generally use color offset printing. Between the transport package and the sales package, the electrical package can be laser-engraved. The resin plate is now mostly used because of the habits of some manufacturers.

Low-energy, environmentally-friendly laser engraving and photopolymer competition and prediction

In the application of electrical food packaging between transport packaging and sales packaging, in addition to economic reasons, the use of laser-engraving plates is more important than environmental protection. In the practice of carton packaging and printing, air cushions or sponge pads with good elasticity are used for printing. High resolution can be achieved and the printing effect can be improved by 10 lines to 20 lines. At present, many carton packaging companies try this method to achieve better results. A more prudent approach is to use a resin plate for some smaller text patterns and a laser engraving plate for characters above the seventh character. Example: Zhuhai Doumen Chiba Paper Products Co., Ltd. adopts this method in the production of Gree air-conditioner export packaging cartons, except that the text pattern below the 7th character adopts the resin version, and the rest uses the laser engraving version. As a result, the cost of plate making can be reduced with guaranteed quality. If all use photosensitive resin plate, a set of printing plate is not less than two or three thousand yuan, but the use of laser-engraving plate-based, photosensitive resin plate supplement, a set of printing plate is only more than 500 yuan, the company does everything possible to reduce production costs, is Should pay attention to the environment is more valuable.

Diversification of platemaking technology

Competition not only provides more choices for the carton packaging industry, but also greatly reduces costs and improves the economic benefits for the carton packaging industry. Prior to the advent of laser engraving, the average price of photosensitive resin was 5 yuan/in2. At that time, almost every industrial area in the Pearl River Delta had a photosensitive resin plate production and processing site, and there was a great trend. After the laser-engraving plate-making was introduced to the market, the price of the photosensitive resin plate dropped rapidly and fell to 1.25 yuan/in2 today. The benefits of plate-making competition to the carton packaging industry are clear. In summary, in the future, corrugated-paper carton packaging companies will continue to compete in the printing plate technology, and competition for laser-engraving plate-making and photosensitive resin printing will continue and will be even more intense. According to corrugated packaging carton industry experts predict that in the future on the transport packaging carton plates, photosensitive resin will be fully withdrawn, in transit and sales of packaging products printing, photosensitive resin plate or slightly upper hand, about 60% of the use of photosensitive resin plate 40% The use of laser engraving plates, the original situation by the photosensitive resin plate unification, no doubt has become history.

At present, the corrugated paper carton packaging industry printing plate, on the whole, laser engraving plate making occupy 75% of the market share, but also continue to extend the trend, despite the photosensitive resin has a high stability, high-definition printing effect, but the cost is a constraint on its development The bottleneck, even if the cost can be reduced, the environmental protection issue is the most critical issue that restricts its development. Therefore, economic and environmental protection laser engraving and plate making is the future direction of development of printing plates in the carton packaging industry.