Tag: printing

Static Elimination Improves Credit Card Printing and Production

Published on by John BallLeave a comment
PVC Base Sheet for Credit Cards

A company that made credit cards was having issues in their print quality, and static was the culprit.  They used PVC sheets as a base material to print on, and like with any non-conductive materials, static can be generated easily and create problems.  For this company, static was attracting dirt to the surface of the material, causing blemishes in the print.  They contacted EXAIR to find a solution.

When non-conductive materials slide, hit, peel, and rub; electrons from the surface can move from one atom to another; thus, creating static.  The type of material and the amount of movement governs the amount of static forces.  These strong static forces can attack debris and fibers, as well as generate shocks, misalignment, and machine jamming.  Another feature of static is that it can regenerate if the materials continue to slide, hit, peel, and rub.

For the company above, they were printing on 30 cm by 48 cm (12” X 19”) PVC sheets.  They used three different processes to print a complete credit card; silkscreen, digital, and offset.  After each printing process, they would lose sections of the sheet due to poor image quality.  At the end, they were losing between 20 to 30% in visual rejections.

For this application, we had to do two operations; remove the static and clean the surface from debris.  The Gen4 Super Ion Air Knife can do both of these operations at the same time.  With the laminar air stream that comes from the Super Air Knife, it can carry both positive and negative ions from the attached Gen4 Ionizing Bar.  Together, they can remove any type of static charge as well as becoming a very effective tool as a non-contact wiper to remove debris.  With this ability, the print quality would not be affected during cleaning.  Since static is a surface phenomenon, I recommended to also remove the static from the other side of the sheets.  We did not want to have any dirt or debris that could be remaining on the bottom surface to transfer from one surface to the next during stacking.  This could scrape the finish during loading and unloading of the sheets.

I recommended two pieces of a model 112012 Gen4 Super Ion Air Knives that are manufactured to 12” (30 cm) in length.  This customer can easily mount one above the sheet and one below the sheet prior to printing.  To operate the attached Gen4 Ionizing Bar, EXAIR offers two types of power supplies, a two-output unit, model 7960, and a four-output unit, model 7961.  They can save you money when needing multiple Static Eliminators to operate in your system.  With a model 7960 Gen4 Power Supply, they now had a system to remove static and clean the sheets.  Once they installed the Gen4 Super Ion Air Knives onto their system, the rejection rate dropped to near zero.

All EXAIR Gen4 Static Eliminators use one of two Power Supplies – your choice of the 2-port Model 7960, or the 4-port Model 7961.

Rejected parts are costly, wasteful, and reduce production rates.  If you have rejection from static problems in your system, EXAIR has a large line of Static Eliminators to help you.  You can contact an Application Engineer to review your application.  For the customer above, the Gen4 Super Ion Air Knives made it possible to generate more credit cards per sheet.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Gen4 Static Eliminators Sove Static Problems for Printing Co.

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

When the weather gets dry and cool, static can be generated very easily, and it can become a real nuisance.  For the printing industry, static forces can pull or push the ink droplets which can create poor print quality like “ghost” images.  Static can also cause contamination to “stick” to the surface of the sheets affecting the printing process.  This can slow production, generate high scrap rates, and allow for poor quality.  In this blog, I will share the details about a printing company having static problems and a simple solution with a Gen4 Static Eliminator.

For this printing company, static was causing issues in print quality on their polypropylene sheets. Polypropylene is a non-conductive material which can generate high amounts of static that can cause many issues.  Their manual operation of moving, sliding, and picking up of the polypropylene sheets was generating the static.  Now that we found the cause, I had to determine a solution.

They sent pictures to describe the process in more detail.  An operator would pick up a sheet with the dimensions of 3 feet wide by 5 feet long (0.9 meters by 1.5 meters) from a bin.  He or she would load three polypropylene sheets onto a wide vacuum table next to the printing machine.  The table had an indicating bar which used yellow/green lights to align each sheet.  Once the indicator lights turned green, this meant that the sheet was aligned properly, and the operator would then hit a switch.

A dual rail with vacuum cups would come over and “grab” the three sheets.  The vacuum rail would pull the new sheets onto a sliding platform at the same time removing the printed sheets into a stacking area.  With the new sheets, this sliding platform would travel into the print machine where the print head would create the images.

Once the printing was completed, the sliding platform would come back to the original position where the process would repeat itself.  With all the handling and moving of the polypropylene sheets, static was being generated.  To improve their printing process by removing the static, we had to target an area where we would not have to worry about static regenerating.

EXAIR is a leading manufacturer of Static Eliminators, and we had a good discussion in solving his issue.  Ideally, we want to place the Static Eliminator just before the printing process.  In this application.  I recommended to them to locate a Gen4 Ionizing Bar just behind the indicating bar.  This would remove any static as the sheets were going onto the sliding platform.  Since the sheets were 3 feet (0.9 meters) wide, we needed to cover a span of 9 feet (2.7 meters) total.  Believe it or not, EXAIR manufactures and stocks an Ionizing Bar this long!!!

For this customer, they would not have to worry about any stop gaps in coverage with a single length product.  Also, the profile for the Gen4 Ionizing Bar is very thin and would not interfere with the vacuum rail system.  So, when the vacuum rail picks up the polypropylene sheets, the Gen4 Ionizing Bar will be able to remove the static from the printable surface.

Gen4 Ionizing Bar with 7960 Power Supply

I recommended the model 80108 Gen4 Ionizing Bar with the model 7960 Gen4 Power Supply.  This model can emit ions that can cover a span of 108 inches (2.73 meters).  The Gen4 Power Supply, which generates a 5,000 Volt signal, connects to the Gen4 Ionizing Bar with an electromagnetically shielded durable cable.  The alternating current generated by the Power Supply allows for the creation of both positive and negative ions from each point.  This will ensure neutralization of any type of static.

The Ionizing Bar can be positioned between 0.5” (13mm) to 2” (51mm) from the sheet surface to optimize decay rates.  After they mounted and started using the Ionization Bar, the static was removed quickly, and the printing issues were eliminated.  With a quick and simple set up of the Gen4 Ionizing Bar, they were able to get back on track with great quality and fast productivity.

If you have static issues with your printing process, you can contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR.  We will be happy to make your static issues disappear and your vibrant images reappear.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

 

New Gen4 Super Ion Air Knives Stop Painful Shocks on Printing Operation

Published on by Tyler DanielLeave a comment
Kirk Rudy inkjet
Customer’s Inkjet Machine

I recently received an inquiry from a customer that was having an issue with static on their Kirk Rudy inkjet machine. They print on a variety of different materials for a range of applications, but had some concerns with static that was being generated. Once printed, the material is transported along a conveyor. Operators then remove the pieces by hand. While doing this, they’re receiving shocks as a result of the static, some of which are quite painful! After a little discussion, we determined that a Model 112012 Gen4 Super Ion Air Knife would be the most suitable solution. I recommended the knife to be positioned so that the ionized air stream would pass over the material as it’s coming down the conveyor. The ionized airflow from the Super Ion Air Knife eliminated any residual static, allowing the operators to remove the material without experiencing any painful shocks. This drastically improved workers attitude about performing this operation and eliminated the repeated written complaints that management was getting as a result. Their issue of finding a willing participant to be repeatedly shocked was rectified and the worker quality of life was improved.

EXAIR has just released the new Gen4 Super Ion Air Knives and Ion Bars. The new bar provides a 34% improved performance from previous models, allowing you to achieve the same or better results with less compressed air. These bars and knives are also now CE approved. Some improved features of the Gen4 Super Ion Air Knives are:

-Up to 34% improved performance

-Rugged metal armored and electromagnetically shielded cable

-Integrated ground eliminates additional ground connection

-Durable stainless steel connections to Power Supply

-UL component recognized/CE Compliant

-Modular Power Supply cable eases connections and routing

If you’d like to talk about the benefits of upgrading to the new Gen4 Static Eliminators or have a new application in need of a static eliminating solution, give us a call.

Tyler Daniel
Application Engineer
E-mail: TylerDaniel@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_TD

EXAIR Static Eliminators Remove Static Charge from Print Station

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment
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Unrolling plastic into this machine created a static charge throughout the process

One of the most common sources of static electricity in automated processes is friction.  As two (or more) materials move against each other, static is produced due to the triboelectric effect.  By definition, the triboelectric effect is a type of contact electrification in which certain materials become electrically charged after they come into frictional contact with a different material.  If these materials are non-conductive, or if they are not grounded, the static charge will remain.  This was the case for the machine shown above.

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Multiple stations of this machine, all experiencing static problems

This machine is a Chesnut 150 Gravure Print Station.  It is used for printing, coating, laminating, and sometimes die cutting of paper, light paperboard, films, polyester, flexible packaging and aluminum foil.

In this application, a roll of plastic is dispensed, but a static charge is preventing proper printing on the plastic as it travels from roll to roll.  As the film is separated from the roll, a static charge is produced, and this charge is carried through the process at values ranging from 3,000 – 20,000 volts.  The manager for this production area contacted EXAIR to see if there’s a viable EXAIR solution to remove this static charge.  They were interested in a solution that could eliminate static on the full width of the plastic, could be mounted 200-300mm away from the rollers, and could be replicated at multiple places along the machine.

With this in mind, the best solution was to use a series of 18” Super Ion Air Knives installed periodically along the path of plastic within the machine.  Operating at a low pressure of 1-2 BARG (14.5 – 29 PSIG), the Super Ion Air Knives create an evenly dispersed, quiet airflow of static eliminating ions with a low compressed air consumption.  Using the laminar, static eliminating airflow from the Super Ion Air Knife, this solution can be mounted away from the static charge, allowing the ions to “rain” down on the affected areas.

For this application finding a solution meant finding a method to keep production on schedule.  Without static elimination this machine faced defects, downtime, and decreased efficiency.  Using EXAIR Super Ion Air Knives brought this application back up to optimal operating speeds, keeping the revenue generating process of this manufacturer ongoing.

Colder weather is here and static comes along with it.  If you’re experiencing a static related problem in your facility, contact one of our Application Engineers.  We’d love to help you find a solution.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
LeeEvans@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_LE