Weilburger Graphics, a manufacturer of coatings, inks and adhesives for the graphic arts industry, has developed a new UV lacquer for digital piezo nozzle application and added it to its product range with immediate effect.
Together with the Czech company Komfi spol, a manufacturer of industrial print finishing machines with a focus on lamination and coating, Weilburger Graphics has developed a new digital printing lacquer, Senolith UV Inkjet high gloss lacquer digital UV 1-14/625 A, which has been specially optimized to meet the requirements of piezo nozzle application. Komfi has further developed and optimized its Spotmatic systems over the last two years. Significant progress has been made in terms of register accuracy, which is ensured by the new camera and register system, production speed and lacquer consumption. In close and trusting cooperation with Weilburger Graphics GmbH, the new Senolith UV Inkjet high gloss lacquer digital UV 1-14/625 A was then developed, which enables consumption-optimized spot and relief coating for high-end finishing, even at high production speeds and on different substrates.
Jan Rezac, R&D specialist at Komfi, praises the cooperation with Weilburger Graphics. “Thanks to the intensive exchange of experience between the two companies, it was possible to achieve an outstanding finishing result, which forms the basis for further developments that are already planned.”
Thomas Rathschlag, laboratory manager at Weilburger Graphics, who was responsible for the development of the new Senolith UV Inkjet high gloss lacquer digital UV 1-14/625 A, says on the challenges, “The aim was to develop a spot and relief-capable UV coating for the piezo nozzle application systems of the new and more powerful Spotmatic systems from Komfi, which is optimized for both the variable and increased production speeds as well as the highly variable coating thicknesses in all limit ranges. The first step was to define and adjust the optimum viscosity of this coating based on the specified parameters and to find the ideal photo initiators. The main problem here was the three-dimensional planning matrix, which was dictated by the variable speeds, surface coverage and application quantities. Thanks to the close cooperation with Komfi’s R&D department and the possibilities for job-specific parameterization of the system-specific application quantities and lamp outputs, we have succeeded in finding an optimum formulation for our new Senolith UV Inkjet high gloss lacquer digital UV 1-14/625 A, which can now also be optimized for use on other digital printing systems with piezo nozzle application on the basis of our measurement data.”
With the new Senolith UV Inkjet high gloss lacquer digital UV 1-14/625 A, Weilburger Graphics GmbH is now expanding its range of digital printing varnishes.
Arno Dürr, sales manager at Weilburger Graphics, comments, “The trend towards digital printing systems is of course not passing us by and we are very pleased that we already have a large number of attractive and high-quality products in our product portfolio for this very special market. Due to the large number of different printing processes and systems, especially in digital printing, the challenge for suppliers like us lies primarily in individual development work and support. There are currently no cross-system standards and almost every manufacturer is still developing their own solutions and systems. In addition, we have observed for years that many manufacturers have built up completely closed supplier cycles and often work with overpriced license models in order to make it difficult for suppliers to access their system-bound market. Of course, this does not make it easy to apply our expertise in product development equally to all manufacturers. We are therefore even more pleased when we find a partnership of equals, as we did with KOMFI spol. s r.o., from which both sides benefit. In this case, the cooperation with KOMFI worked extremely well and with the new Senolith UV Inkjet high gloss lacquer digital UV 1-14/625 A, a high-quality product has been created that can be seen and felt. And that at all common process speeds, in all required relief thicknesses and on a variety of substrates.”
