Soma develops ink cartridge for spot colors on CI presses

The system is unique to Soma and a first in CI press development and design, the European manufacturer said. Developed in conjunction with the launch of its 800mm-wide Optima printing press, the system offers printers a means of reducing ink costs on printing jobs where expensive spot colors, special effect and metallic formulations are required.

These high pigment inks are expensive consumables and reducing ink volumes, and residual waste permits printers to maintain profit margins while meeting end-user price demands, Soma said.

On a typical seven color job using solvent-based inks, for example, the pumps are primed with CMYK and spot colors. The minimum volume of ink per color in the system including doctor blade, ink hoses and ink bucket is six liters per color, plus ink to print, for example, 400,000 labels. When the print run is complete the six liters of ink per color is returned to the ink bucket. This is feasible for the CMYK inks, but for Pantone spot colors and expensive metallic formulations that cover less than one percent of the print area, it is not practical.

Using the ink cartridge system for the spot colors reduces ink waste and provides savings. The ink cartridge system operates at a minimum level of one liter and at a maximum of three. Based on current experience, Soma claims to have seen an average of 17.9 percent in ink savings.

The system is suitable for water-based, solvent-based and UV curable inks, and can be fitted easily and quickly on the doctor blade chamber cross beam without tooling. Integrated automatic viscosity control and wash-up, touchscreen control and tool free maintenance are other features.

The system is available for all Soma flexographic printing press models, both new and already installed via retrofit.

The Soma ink cartridge is patent-pending and advances the flexographic printing process by providing users with a competitive edge, and a new tool that saves time and reduces costs and waste while maintaining profitability.