Grafiche Quartana adds UV Ray's hybrid curing tech on Omet iFlex label press

Marco Quartana, owner of Grafiche Quartana, said: ‘LED curing systems were mounted on the machine in line with energy savings, but also for their reliability.

We chose to mount UV Ray lamps from the beginning, as we find they are a streamlined company with an advanced technical product that reflects the customer's requirements and provides a customized product when necessary.’

UV Ray’s Atom UV mercury and MaxLED water-cooled LED lamps were installed at Grafiche Quartana's 2,000sqm label production facility.

Quartana added: ‘In our case, the system fits well with the high performance of the Omet iFlex, which is among the most advanced in the industry. It is a 360-format, 8-color flexo press with a reversing bar, cold foil and in-line die-cutting with rotary cylinders with 100 percent Omet manufactured accessories, which we installed in July 2023.’

Alberto Maiano, CEO of Milano, Italy-based UV Ray, explained the benefits of installing water-cooled UV LED lamps on the Omet iFlex press: ‘Water-cooled LED technology is well-suited to Omet's single-pass flexo presses. Combined with the iFlex print quality, it allows for the best results in every respect — especially register accuracy even when printing on sensitive and difficult materials like thermal paper or plastic films such as clear-on-clear.

Furthermore, there is no heating of the press or its parts, including the die that collects all the material temperature at the end of the press. The fast LED start-up time also results in ease and repeatability of jobs.’

Maiano expounded the advantages of water cooling, which ‘allows the material contrast to always be at a constant temperature throughout the day and keeps the LED in perfect working order.’

He continued: ‘As the LED is a critical electronic component, it bases all its effectiveness on very little thermal control. This is why we have carefully chosen the construction materials of our LEDs, precisely to achieve the highest possible dissipation for a very high efficiency.’