IST-METZ is looking to win more business in the Middle East and Africa through offering low-energy UV curing for commercial printing and some entry level packaging, says Jean-Philippe Fournier, sales manager for sheetfed applications.
The firm’s new LE UV technology offers a “new concept” for commercial printers and a few entry level packaging printers, who never used UV inks and UV coatings in the past. It is a new opportunity for the customers, he told Packaging MEA.
“Due to the lower investment cost and reduced power consumption of the new UV system, you can increased your production, through a much faster delivery with no waiting time between printing and finishing,” he said. “More add value, via some special effect in one pass, but always the availability correct consumables are the key.”
IST-METZ has developed a low-energy UV system branded ‘LE-UV’.
“It is something between the normal UV, which needs a lot of lamps’ energy and LED-UV,” he said.
“For the normal UV system you need normal UV inks and normal UV coatings,” he said.
“But for the LE-UV technology you need special high-reactive UV inks and high-reactive UV coatings. The same is for the LED-UV system you need adapted ink for this technology. For example, you have an Heidelberg CD 102-5+LX prepared for UV, equipped with a normal UV system – two lamps interdecks interchangeable in all printing units and two lamps end-of-press – we can print four-colour process with standard UV inks, with standard UV effect varnish and a standard gloss UV varnish. With our LE-UV technology you can do the same printing job with only one UV lamp installed in the pile delivery of the printing machine.”
The new concept is “all about consumables”, he added. “This concept was born in the beginning for the normal commercial printers with four-colour process, but we are now moving this towards to some packaging printers as the next step.”
In his view, though, LE-UV and LED-UV technology will not replace immediately normal standard UV, especially for high-quality packaging, food and pharma-packaging.