Ways to reduce cost in rotary printing
Hardik Shah, Director Marketing, Embee India, shares the step by step upgradation of the end-rings in the rotary screen printing industry. He says, ´In view of my experience in textile mills in different cities of Pakistan and subsequent evaluation, I can recommend two different upgrades for the rotary screen printing department to reduce energy and maintenance costs.´
Hardik Shah of Embee India proposes step-by-step upgrade to reduce cost at the rotary printing (screen making) department.
Hardik Shah, Director Marketing, Embee India, shares the step by step up-gradation of the end-rings in the rotary screen printing industry. He says, ´In view of my experience in textile mills in different cities of Pakistan and subsequent evaluation, I can recommend two different upgrades for the rotary screen printing department to reduce energy and maintenance costs.´
Upgrades in endring gluing and endring removing machine
In order to upgrade endring gluing/fixing (EGM), the customer can fix endrings faster, save energy with no screen denting or tearing, and gain better reproducibility of screens. With Embee technology, the customer can fix endrings in roughly 2-3 mins. The high intensity bulbs or lamps are used instead of 12 KW electrical heaters to fix the endrings. In this context, the process is exactly the same, which involves applying of same endring adhesive on endrings manually, after which screen is placed and fixed onto endrings on machine resulting in perfect alignment. The additional advantages include minimal denting and tearing of the screen on rotary printing machine. It is also important to highlight that adhesion is much better as compared to result achieved by use of electrical heaters/curing ovens.
The usual life of bulbs as you know is up to six months depending on usage and machines alignment. But thats not all – in case of an upgrade EGM reduces load of curing oven, which is a costly affair running at 12 Kwh/units (energy consumption of PKR 216 per hour).
Embee retrofit reduces load on oven by almost 33.33 per cent since without such an upgrade an oven (which is a hidden costs) is used for curing of emulsion; endring fixing and endring removing generates additional costs. Hardik Shah concludes, ´Some of the comparable machines from Europe have low life of bulbs, due to a basic flaw in design and engineering.´
Hence, Shah advises, ´Choose your machine manufacturer wisely and if possible endring gluing / fixing can be upgraded at the same time.´
Upgrading Endring Removing (ERM)
Shah says, ´Endring removing process has been ignored in Pakistan, which is infact the need of the hour since it plays a key factor in improving reusability of the screens on the large scale.´
The conventional removal of endrings from screens is explained as follows:
1.Heating in oven for 10-12 mins.
2.Manually Scrapping glue with knife.
3.Soft Hammering and manual removal.
The conventional removal of endrings as per above method, results in torn edges and dents near the endrings. This results in poor quality of screen printing and lesser reusability of those screens. Shah says, ´When I visit customers, they often wonder what the machine does to reduce cost of screen printing. The machine engineered by Embee is a novel idea to remove endrings from screens, keeping in mind that careless or untrained operator can be substituted by consistent and reliable technology.´
Shah say, ?I would like to summarise once again, that ERM also reduces load of curing oven which is a costly affair running at 12 Kwh/units (Energy of PKR 216 per hour, showing the savings of 33 per cent). The Embee endring fixing and removing machine reduces load on oven by almost 66 per cent, which is required for curing of emulsion. Furthermore, the oven door is opened and closed fewer times, which ensures lower heat loss, and use of high power heaters. The step by step upgrade with Embee technology reduces cost and is the need of the hour for the processing mills of Pakistan.
Hardik Shah can be contacted at: hardyshah@gmail.com