The Esko Full HD Flexo platemaking system received the Flexographic Pre-Press Platemakers Association (FPPA) 2015 Technological Innovator of the Year award at the President’s Banquet on April 28, during the FPPA’s 18th Annual Convention.
The award recognises the application of innovative technology contributing to the advancement of the prepress industry. Full HD Flexo is a unique process for making digital flexographic plates that are of higher quality and print more consistently than standard digital flexo plates. With Full HD Flexo plates, flexography, a more economical print process, can match the print quality of offset or gravure, and may be implemented without scrapping existing equipment and working methods.
The FPPA consists of businesses that are involved in or supply the flexographic industry as well as academic and trade press members. Its purpose is to create, promote and enhance high standards within the flexographic prepress platemaking industry, to provide leadership through vision and direction, to strengthen education at all levels and to further the best interests of the industry. They do so by providing the communication, training, information and standards needed to remain successful and profitable.
Esko Full HD Flexo is a platemaking system for superior flexo printing for all packaging applications. It utilises a patented, fully digitally controlled platemaking system combining high-resolution 4000-ppi imaging with a unique inline UV main exposure unit. An LED-array delivers UV power density strong enough to fully control the plate polymerisation process during main exposure. Flexo plates are imaged, exposed and delivered directly to the plate processor, without need for main exposure on a light table.
With Full HD Flexo, flexo platemaking has become a true ‘Computer to Plate’ process: no lamination and no films. No special consumables are needed, and it is not proprietary: it works with all popular digital flexo plates and sleeves. Plates are ready for processing after unloading from the CDI imager. Press changeovers are faster because of easier make readies, and downtimes are reduced. Human errors are reduced and plate consistency is boosted enormously.
Full HD Flexo also offers consistency, because Inline UV technology maintains consistent, digitally controlled UV light output throughout the entire plate, while lamps in a bank exposure frame continuously age and need frequent replacement every few hundred hours. Bank exposure frames also deliver different UV output over the entire frame area. There is a sustainable benefit as well. For example, printing flexible packaging on a flexo press instead of gravure reduces energy use and CO2 emissions by as much as 50%. Converters and brand owners can improve sustainability by taking advantage of the higher quality offered by Full HD Flexo.
