Esko unveils new flexo platemaking systems

These new launches mark the first and only automated flexo platemaking line in the industry, and to streamline the entire process, Esko has made it more automated and easier to use. This not only improves the productivity of platemaking, it also ensures quality and consistency throughout, and simplifies flexo platemaking.

Esko follows the introduction of its CDI Crystal 5080 flexo imager with the introduction of the CDI Crystal 4835. This new launch supports the 48x35 inch plate size that is popular with flexo converters and provides the same benefits as the CDI Crystal 5080. The Crystal CDI features automatic plate loading and unloading and is said to be easy to use. Operators need minimal training and spend 50 percent less time at the device, according to Esko. In addition, plate waste and plate inconsistencies resulting from manual plate handling are eliminated.

An early user of the CDI Crystal 4835, Lene Hoegh Madsen, pre-press manager at the packaging group Schur in Germany, confirmed: ‘The CDI Crystal and XPS Crystal are very easy to operate. We can train new operators very fast, and that enables us to make plates at night or early in the morning depending on our needs, and not only when our platemaking expert is in.’

The XPS Crystal exposure unit has been introduced for both the 5080 and 4835 sizes in the past few years. These systems have received awards for reducing the manual steps from nine steps to just one, and for delivering plates of higher quality and consistency thanks to their unique and patented digitally controlled simultaneous UV light main and back exposure.

Using the CDI Crystal in combination with the Crystal XPS frees up operators from mundane and repetitive tasks. It also means that there is only a single system to monitor.

The new Print Control Wizard software adds a new level of simplification in the platemaking department. Esko has worked its decades of expertise into an easy-to-use wizard that takes the complexity out of flexo platemaking.

The application outputs the right plate fit for purpose based on a range of print run parameters. The plates produced through Print Control Wizard deliver ‘superior print quality’, said Esko; they use a screen and dot gain curves that take into consideration the press, substrates, inks, anilox and other print run parameters.

‘The first customers that worked with Print Control Wizard confirm that it is as simple as entering the production parameters in order to get superb screening fit for the print run,’ said Robert Bruce, flexo product manager with Esko, ‘and the print results prove it: the plates last longer on the press and deliver brilliant, consistent quality.’