We have discussed the features of Ceramic rollers last time, long service life, save consumable parts, and more uniform inking, today we are going to share the most common use type in our industry.
Due to the different application, ceramic rollers also have different types (the cell types are different), the Hexagon 60° is the classic one, besides, there are Diamond 45°, Trihelical type, ART type and etc, even some customized type according to customer’s requirements.
In our industry, for flexo printer slotter die-cutter industry, the most common use are Hexagon 60° and ART type, what’s the difference and its features, let’s see bellow chart.
| Lines | Ink Carrying Capacity | ||
| Hexagon 60° cm2/m2 | ART Type (Perfect) cm2/m2 | ART Type (Max.) cm2/m2 | |
| Structure | |||
| Hexagon 60° type of ceramic roller, each cell is independent one, not have any connection. | The cells of ART type are all connected together by a slot between each cell, which can increase the ink capacity, and get more uniform ink (Open-type Cells). | ||
| 250 LPI | 12.0 | 18.0 | 20.0 |
| 300 LPI | 9.0 | 15.0 | 18.0 |
| 350 LPI | 8.5 | 13.5 | 17.0 |
| 400 LPI | 7.5 | 12.0 | 15.0 |
| 450 LPI | 6.0 | 11.5 | 13.0 |
| 500 LPI | 5.0 | 8.0 | 11.0 |
| 600 LPI |
300LPI ceramic roller is the most common use in our daily production, now let’s take it as an example (Reference to Yellow colors).
- According this above data, we can easily understand when the LPI become much higher, then the Ink Carrying Capacity become smaller.
- Hexagon 60° type ceramic roller in 300LPI, the ink capacity is 9.0 cm2/m2.
- ART type ceramic roller in 500LPI, the ink capacity is from 8.0-11.0 cm2/m2.
So that means, when we use higher ART ceramic roller, we can get similar ink capacity result to compare with normal ceramic rollers, in this case we can get different printing applications, see bellow
| Description | Normal Ceramic Roller 300LPI | ART Ceramic Roller 500LPI |
| Printing Plate Lines | 10-50lines | 0-70lines or little higher |
| Normal Printing | Printing Plate bellow 50lines, not big different | Printing Plate bellow 50lines, not big different |
| Small Letters | Not good, but Ok | Very good |
| Solid Printing | Bad | Very good |
| Precision Printing | No | 50-70lines or little higher, if some customer has a little high requirement of Printing, then ART Ceramic Roller can solve the problem, because Printing Plate Lines can up to 70lines. |