Decorating & finishing equipment gets faster, safer, more versatile.

A slew of new products for plastics decorating and finishing have been brought to market over the last several months. Included are new pad printers with enclosed inkwells and faster speeds and new flexographic presses with quick changeover and capacity for more colors.

There's also news in laser marking, hot stamping, and spray painting.

THE LATEST IN PAD PRINTING 

The modular GS line of pad printers with up to four pad heads and mechanical, pneumatic, or servo drive was launched recently by Imtran Industries, Inc., Newburyport, Mass. A vacuum-assisted plate provides a hermetic seal between the printing plate and cup so no solvent can evaporate. Speeds up to 20-25 parts/min can be attained.

The new Rapid line of sealed-ink-cup pad printers from Trampoprint International Corp., Vero Beach, Fla., can be manually or automatically loaded. Cycle speeds of up to 5000 prints/hr are achievable with an automated line.

A new product line from 3DT, Inc., Germantown, Wis., called PrintFlex Colorsafe Jumbo Pad Printing Systems, has been introduced to the U.S. market. The printers have enclosed inkwells and a flexible silicone pad that's said to be particularly suitable for printing on oddly shaped objects or irregular surfaces.

A two-color shuttle that moves the printing pad to the part has been designed to fit TP, TPX, and TC model pad printers from Teca-Print USA Corp., Billerica, Mass. Shuttling the pad is said to yield faster cycles than shuttling the part to the pad. The two-color shuttle can change over to one-color printing in less than 2 min. Other features include adjustable dwell time from the first color to the second - used to improve ink opacity - and adjustable color-to-color registration to correct artwork deviations.

Printex of San Diego has introduced a new sealed-cup pad printer for marking materials with irregular and textured surfaces. The portable, benchtop COS-60 unit runs at 2400 cycles/hr. Manual and semi-automatic operating modes are standard, and the unit can easily integrate with automated systems.

MORE FLEXIBLE FLEXO SYSTEM

A new patented system from BHS Machinery Corp. of Baltimore is said to be innovative in that it has direct drive of the printing-plate cylinder, which provides for wide format variability. The BHS-Infinitely Variable Flexographic Printing System can print any repeat length (just as in gravure printing), independent of gear-wheel increments, which were formerly a limiting factor.

Additionally, this system offers the advantage of deliberately printing "longer" or "shorter," taking into consideration material shrinkage or stretching during processing - including subsequent downstream steps. The system is also said to print in-register on preprinted materials.

Other features include automatic register presetting and precision stepper motors for setting the printing-plate cylinder directly into printing position. Changeover times are said to be extremely short. It is readily convertible to uv drying.

A new version of the quick-change Soloflex flexographic printer is now available from Windmoeller & Hoelscher Corp., Lincoln, R.I. Previously available for six colors, the new CI Soloflex is an eight-color version. The unit is almost identical to its predecessor except that a 48-in.-diam., double-walled, temperature-controlled central-impression drum is used instead of the 30-in.-diam. air-cooled drum used on the six-color unit. One operator reportedly can complete a full eight-color make-ready in 30-40 min.

LOW-COST LASER PRINTING

Lumonics Corp., Oxnard, Calif., has introduced the first two models of a low-cost, flexible Xymark series of laser marking systems for marking parts on the fly. Typical applications include molded parts (especially of PVC), wire and cable, and food-cutting boards.

The sealed, air-cooled C[O.sub.2] Xymark 7000 and Xymark Sprint units apply permanent, high-contrast alphanumeric marks, ID matrices, bar codes, or company logos at speeds of up to 650 and 1950 characters/sec, respectively. Both models are fully programmable and can communicate with a host computer via RS-232 serial port. They feature a choice of dot-matrix character formats that allow very long and very high marks (in one to three lines) that can easily be modified from the keyboard. Their compact footprint (approx. 26 x 19 in.) and remote, articulated-arm marking head allows for flexibility of installation.

The Xymark 7000 is said to be particularly economical to operate, as there is no gas consumption and it can mark more than one part at a time. It costs $45,000. The Xymark Sprint model sells for $51,900.

New laser-markable label stock for applications requiring high durability has been introduced by 3M Co.'s Identification and Converter Systems Div., St. Paul, Minn. ScotchMark 7847 features a two-layer, cast-acrylate facestock that is marked by a laser beam to create an inverse image. It is said to provide long-term readability, excellent image contrast, and resistance to abrasion, chemicals, and outdoor weathering.

HOT-STAMP PRODUCT CODING

A hot-stamp imprinter designed for high-speed intermittent or continuous motion is new from Norwood Marking Systems, Downers Grove, Ill. This unit imprints variable information such as lot numbers, production codes, and "sell-by" dates on packaging films and labels. The compact coder has a 0.5 x 1 in. imprint area and uses hardened steel type. A built-in sensor alerts the operator or can shut down the production line when ribbon changes are required in order to ensure that every product is shipped with a code. It also has a spare-ribbon cassette to facilitate quick changeover.

United Silicone, Inc., Lancaster, N.Y., added a high-performance DSP controller with automatic setup and troubleshooting as a standard feature on its 1-ton vertical hot stamper, Model US 10. The controller stores up to 10 job setups, and its advanced diagnostics simplify troubleshooting. An LCD display shows a message if there is a problem with a component such as a fuse, limit switch, valve, or thermocouple.

SAFER SPRAY PAINTING

A new electrostatic spray system for waterborne coatings is said to be safer and more efficient than conventional electrostatic systems. The AccuCharge system from AccuSpray, Inc., Cleveland, imparts an electrostatic charge directly to each paint droplet, whereas other electrostatic systems create a high-voltage ion cloud from which the paint droplets pick up a charge as they pass through it.

The new system creates a 6-10 kv d-c field directly over the spray tip, while other systems typically release 60-90 kv, with only a percentage of the charge actually deposited on the coating. Consequently, all operators, work pieces, tools, and anything else within 10 ft of a conventional sprayer must be grounded or it will build up a charge. Other benefits are said to be more efficient deposition - there is no Faraday-cage effect or "picture framing," and paint is delivered evenly to outside edges and inside corners. The AccuCharge system comes with hand-held or robotic spray guns.

What is said to be the first truly ergonomic spray gun of its type has features that reportedly reduce the risk of operators developing cumulative trauma disorders. Key advantages of the OMX gun from ITW DeVilbiss Industrial Spray Equipment, Maumee, Ohio, include its light weight (12 oz vs. industry-standard 22 oz) and its ergonomically designed grip, which is said to achieve comfort and balance and will not transfer heat or cold.

Other features include three triggering positions, low trigger-pull force (from less than 1 lb to 2 lb vs. the industry standard of 6 lb), various hose inlet options, and ergonomic controls. The pattern control knob requires only a 90 [degrees] turn from full fan to round spray pattern, and the fluid-control knob requires only two turns for full flow. The OMX gun is said to provide consistently fine atomization of "difficult" materials such as low-VOC solvent-based and waterborne coatings at high flow rates.