Digital engraving gravure cylinder (on)

(Digital Engraving) In the past few years, the packaging and printing industry has undergone tremendous changes in the engraving of gravure plate cylinders. Film manuscripts have been phased out and basically no longer used. Instead, digital data is used directly to digitize. Engraving, and application is more and more common, has become a trend and a new standard. The latest generation of engraving machines Helio Klischographs took this development into full consideration, and it has been designed as a pure "output device". At the same time, most of the functions of the engraving machine are gradually transferred to the front-end equipment. These new developments and new transformations have not only improved the production capacity of the Helio Klischographs engraving machines, but also greatly improved the quality of the gravure cylinders carved out. First, hardware and software The latest generation of Helio Klischographs is controlled by a PC running the Windows NT operating system. Peripherals (such as external storage media or networks) use standards such as optical disks or (fast) Ethernet. medium. In addition to these PC workstations, the machine can be set up through the display screen. The running of each program always monitors the status and stores the running status report in the log file. The server can perform remote fault diagnosis, and the software can also be upgraded via a modem. The above features and functions greatly simplify the operation and maintenance of the system. Second, the input data is currently dominated by digital data in gravure printing, at present, almost all new live version of the drum is used non-film engraving production. Therefore, the HelioKlischographs K500 engraving machine has been designed as a pure output device. If you need to scan film, you can use a large-format scanner with an electronic descreening function to scan the film. The data processing after scanning and other electronic data are complete. the same. There are two ways in which these electronic data can be transferred to the engraving machine: through certain data media or through the network. In the past, people often used certain media to transfer data, which may require a large amount of storage media. After the emergence and application of the Internet, the situation is very different. It is sufficient to use an engraving server, and it is not necessary to use a large amount of storage media. Storage media. At present, the use of network transmission is becoming more and more popular and more and more popular. We know that Postscript and PDF file formats have become relatively fixed and commonly used output formats for the imagesetter. Similarly, engraving data also requires a uniform, standard data format. In gravure printing, the TIFF file format has become The standard data format for engraving files. The advantage of data format standardization is that printers do not necessarily have to make gravure plate cylinders at this plate making company. Other platemaking manufacturers can be selected because platemaking data is standardized; at the same time, there is also a certain degree of flexibility in the selection of production equipment. And initiative. Third, data processing The emergence of digital direct engraving technology also has very important significance, but also caused a strong response. Most of the functions of the engraving machine are gradually transferred to the front-end system. That is to say, the whole process of the design group edition is basically completed on the front-end system, and each step can be seen (the so-called "see you The resulting "mode", therefore, the vast number of users benefit. The TIFF format file data is generated on the front-end system and then carved on the HelioKlischographs in a 1:1 ratio (original size). High-performance proofing systems, such as HelioFormProof, can be used not only for internal proofing, but also to communicate with customers through sample proofs to further improve the quality and accuracy of production. The notion of ROOM (RIP once, output multiple times) was not applied to the field of Postscript. Earlier, ROOM was already used in gravure printing. It also means that all the data need only be calculated once. The screening data used for proofing and engraving is exactly the same. In fact, front-end devices use standard hardware devices such as Apple Macs and PCs running the Windows NT operating system. Therefore, the entire process of gravure printing has reached a high level of standardization. Fourth, carving preparation work With professional carving design software, all engraving parameters can be set and controlled on Apple Mac or PC running Windows NT operating system, greatly reducing the debugging time of HelioKlischographs. Then, these parameters are passed to the HelioKlischographs engraving machine using a parameter file called "job ticket". Due to the transformation of the engraving machine structure, the preparation process is greatly simplified, and it is only necessary to place the rollers well (and this step may also be omitted in the future). The advantage of this type of equipment is that it saves time and that centralized control of the engraving process takes place. It also means that in actual production, only a few well-trained personnel are required to control the engraving process, and the requirements for the operator are greatly reduced. Because the precise engraving time of each drum is already known in advance, the production schedule can be appropriately arranged accordingly. In addition, instructions can be added to the production order to tell the HelioKlischographs operator about special requirements for engraving production. Fifth, automatic installation of roller In recent years, hollow and bearing type of drum is usually used for pivotal installation or jaw chuck installation, and use the lifting table to help fix. If manual installation is used, the operator first puts the drum on the lifting platform, and then the lifting table automatically adjusts and fixes the height of the drum; if it is installed fully automatically, the robot arm puts the drum on the lifting platform first. (Positioning does not have to be very accurate), and then the elevator table takes over. The precise positioning and fixing of the drum is currently done inside the engraving machine. In the fully automatic mode, if you can check the diameter of the roller, it's better. Therefore, HelioKlischographs K500 engraving machine is specially equipped with a roller measuring tool, and the measured actual diameter of the roller is compared with the target size marked on the worksheet. Sixth, automatic test (testcut) The geometric shape of the carving network is determined by the "basic setting" of the engraving process, such as the magnitude of the amplitude, the correction of the highlight, dark tone, and mid-tone corresponding engraving electrical signal, the modulation and amplification of the image signal. Amplitude, and the ratio between engraving frequency and drum line speed. In addition, there are other factors that also have a certain impact on the engraving results, such as the quality of the copper layer, the type of engraving head, and the condition of the engraving needle. In order to reduce and avoid the influence of these external factors as much as possible, and to keep the geometry of the cells consistent, the engraving control signal must be corrected. The method of correction is mainly to perform test engraving (test engraving) with a specific cell shape, and then perform evaluation and perform corresponding calibration according to the results. Previously, this test step was done manually, and now, with the CellGuard system, testing can be automated. The advantage of fully automated testing is that the testing process is not affected by the operator and has nothing to do with the operator. This improves the consistency and reproducibility of the different rollers and also reduces the workload of the operator.