NASHVILLE, TN—The Flexo Quality Consortium (FQC), always seeking to better the flexographic industry through research projects, gave updates on two of its largest outings to date, and a look at the 2014 Rossini Scholarship winners’ progress in Monday’s “Research That Resonates” session at Forum 2015. The presentation, in front of a packed to capacity room in Nashville, TN, was chaired by Jean Engelke, RR Donnelley and John Paine, C-P Flexible Packaging.
Alexander James, from Harper GraphicSolutions, and Ann Michaud, from 3M, led the session, with a look at the FQC’s High Resolution Printing Project. The pair began by thanking the several dozen team members who added to the research.
James spoke to Part A of the Project, which focused on print output metrics. He began by giving a look at a high resolution test target, paying attention to the different pieces and describing what each component reveals about a given setup. They included:
- Vertical tone scales
- 100 percent solids
- Positive/reverse line widths
- Horizontal and vertical vignettes
- Screens
An examination of the resulting press operating data sheet provided evidence of how Full HD Curved compared to Full HD Linear, a 4,000 Linear Run, a 4,000 Curved, a 2,540 Linear Run and a 2,540 Curved.
Michaud took over to give an overview of what the team hopes to accomplish with Part B, a performance comparison. Chiefly, Part B pledges to:
- Identify components included in high resolution concepts
- Use tribal knowledge to identify other steps that must be taken to capture the effect of these changes and experiment as needed
- Evaluate and report on the end use impact as identified in Part A of these two combinations
She concluded by issuing an open call for volunteers to assist with Part B.
Shawn Oetjen, from Harper Corporation of America, and Steve Smiley, from SmileyColor & Associates, took the stage next to discuss another FQC research project—Post Print Near Neutral Dataset Assessment Gamut Alignment.
Assessing the project’s objective to collect and analyze at least 10 documented flexo press runs printed under the ISO 12647-6 standard and Flexographic Image Reproduction Specifications & Tolerances (FIRST) best practices, Oetjen reviewed suggested pigments and hue angles. Steps two and three consisted of plates and printing.
When it came to sample collection, the project used one sheet after printing 10, until it had collected 12 examples. These examples were then examined with the aid of Kern Cox from Clemson University and Bill Webber at Printron. The resulting data consisted of 15 coated datasets and 10 uncoated datasets.
Working through the data, Smiley revealed the conclusion: Using G7 calibration improves alignment and aligns with ISO 15339-CRPC5 for post print coated substrate. On uncoated substrate, G7 also improved alignment but aligned with CRPC-2 or CRPC-3.
“It all aligns,” Smiley concluded, “and that’s what our customers want.”
Last year’s first place Rossini Scholarship winner, Nathan Pretorius, finished the session with a presentation of his project: to print a capacitive touchpad. He noted that touch interfaces are used in a wide variety of popular consumer electronics today, but current production techniques are slow. The project’s goal was to create a printable design that was capable of supporting multitouch, print a proof on concept and connect it to a computer.
Pretorius then went through an overview of the experiment, touching on design considerations, inks, materials and equipment used, electrical considerations, the ultimate printing method he chose, and on and off press parameters.
Three press runs were used:
- The first press run tested how orientation affected the design
- The second press run used two designs, with line thicknesses between 30 microns and 90 microns
- The third press run used solid “flood” dielectric design
After failing in the first two runs, Pretorius was successful in the third attempt. A live demonstration of his working capacitive touchpad gave attendees in the packed room a look at a potential future application of flexo printing. After noting a few takeaways from his research, chiefly that correct ink film thickness was crucial, Pretorius closed by proposing a few next steps.
Wrapping up the session, Engelke announced the launching of the Gary Hilliard Memorial Scholarship, named for the 2013 Hall of Fame inductee who the flexographic community lost just a few months before his honoring at that year’s Forum.