Komori is Seeking answers to today’s issues with the implementation of the H-UV system across a broad swath of the Komori product line-up and testing the materials and articles that will drive Komori’s PESP initiative have made the R&D Centre a hub of trusted know-how.
The Printing R&D Centre seeks to find answers to the new needs and issues confronting users. The results of its research and development include collaborating with various other manufacturers and developing printing software.
For the previous five years, the Centre has worked principally on creating the H-UV system and promoting standardisation based on printability tests aimed at optimising printing materials such as blankets, inks, varnishes, coater plates, wash-up solvents and dampening solution additives.
Results of the research are communicated both throughout the Komori Group and to outside parties. The H-UV Innovative UV Curing System is a technology that arrived just as the Komori Graphic Technology Centre was inaugurated, and the development of this system and the growth of KGC have been inseparable ever since.
In three and a half years, Komori has shipped more than 200 H-UV-equipped presses to users in Japan and more than 100 such machines to printers overseas, with over 40 presses in Europe alone. The range of H-UV-specified machines includes 4-10 col, B1 and B2, presses with and without coaters.
H-UV’s wide-ranging benefits
• This technology is outstanding in its advantages for the environment — using a low-power lamp that emits no ozone, offering powder less operation that is free of VOCs, and affording recyclability of printed work.
• The system also overcomes bottlenecks in printing due to the slow turnaround of conventional oil based inks relying on oxidation and polymerization (natural drying). H-UV allows work to be immediately processed in the bindery and therefore requires no drying time.
• The print quality attainable with H-UV is outstanding because there is no damage to the prints as a result of ink set-off in the delivery. And since the process is powder less, machine maintenance and downtime is reduced and work can be sent to post press finishing immediately for cutting and folding.
• Ink usage is reduced because there is no ink no dry- back and therefore what you see in the delivery of the press is what you get.
