Learn about aniloxs.

1. Aniloxs classification

According to different surface materials, aniloxs are divided into two types: Chrome anilox rollers and ceramic anilox rollers.

Initially, the screen line count of the flexo printing plate was relatively low (50-60lpi), and the corresponding aniloxs line count was around 300lpi, and chrome anilox rollers were sufficient.

However, with the continuous improvement of flexo printing accuracy, only ceramic aniloxs can achieve higher line counts, so now most of them use ceramic aniloxs.

Ceramic aniloxs are mainly divided into two types in terms of structure: one is a shaft-type ceramic anilox roller, and the other is a sleeve-type ceramic anilox sleeve.

The ceramic anilox rollers are mainly used in the unit-type and stacked flexo printing machines, such as Mark Andy ,MPS, Nilpeter, Omet, Duoweilong,Unisplendour, Egofa, Weigang, Zhongtian.......

The ceramic anilox sleeves are mainly used in the CI type flexo printing machines, such as W&H and F&K, Comexi，Uteco，Bobst，Soma，Gallus.....

2. Production of ceramic aniloxs

Making ceramic anilox rollers/sleeves are mainly divided into three steps. details as follows:

The first step of the process is to prime the surface of the base roller, that is, to roughen the surface of the roller, commonly known as sandblasting. The purpose is to allow the ceramics sprayed in the next step to be better combined with the base roller.

The base material is made of nickel-chromium alloy, and the thickness is controlled at 0.1mm. After the anilox rollers/sleeves have been used for a long time, the corrosive substances in the ink will enter the ceramic layer. If the priming process and materials are not good, the ceramic layer will easily crack.

The second step of the process is spraying. Cr2O3 ceramic powder is thermally melted and then sprayed onto the base roller, which is called plasma thermal spraying. Generally, the thickness of spraying is required to be 0.20~0.25mm, and the hardness is HV1250~1350.

The third step of the process is to engraving the cells. At present, the laser engraving machines used in China are basically imported from the British ALE company.

Parameters such as the LPI or LPC, cells, arrangement angle, and volume determine the performance of the aniloxs, and are all formulated according to the customer's printing plate.

3. Line and ink capacity

The number of screen lines of the anilox roller is mainly determined based on the number of screen lines on the printing plate.

This parameter can be set directly on the engraving machine, but other

The corresponding ink load capacity is a range value (for example, 700lpi corresponds to 2.0~3.5BCM). Which one should be choosen?

Depending on the type of printing material, if the film absorbs less ink, you can choose 2.0BCM (experience value). For coated paper or offset paper, you may need 2.8BCM of ink. But how big of the cell can be carved to get an ink carrying capacity of 2.8BCM?

For this, a test engraving process is required. First, carve a few rows of cell, then use a cell detection instrument to take pictures, and use the integration method to calculate the ink load. After continuous adjustments, until the measured ink load is appropriate, it is completed. There is a trial and adjustment process.

4. Cell shape

The most common cell shape is the 60° hexagonal, as well as spiral triangle, S-type (Gulf Stream) and other shapes.

The most basic requirements for hexagonal cell are: regular cell shape, smooth cell wall, flat cell bottom, uniform engraving effect, and good ink transfer ability. Among them, flattening the bottom of the net doesn't mean making the bottom of the net flat, because a flat bottom will create dead corners.

If you want to know the characteristics of different cells, please feel free to contact us.

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