Belgium / Nederlands
Nine years and still counting, InLineFoiler is tops
The InlineFoiler is an attractive value added printing technology applied in packaging, label and commercial printing. Since the InlineFoiler was launched by Manroland Sheetfed at drupa 2004, it has been highly recognized by the printers in these three market segments. Nine years later, it remains a popular application among printers. The beauty and elegance shown on the products cannot be achieved by other printing technologies. As demonstrated at the last drupa, Manroland Sheetfed further improved the performance of its InlineFoiler by making it the new Indexed InlineFoiler, which can save up to 55% in foil consumption.
As a value added printing technology, InlineFoiler reflects class and style to a packaged product. It is a special finishing process designed to achieve various metallic effects inline through the installation of the ROLAND InlineFoiler; common plates, special adhesive ink and cold foil transfer are linked together with the common sheetfed offset. Because the process is done inline, it can simultaneously include the application of anti-counterfeiting elements in packaging and label printing. The printing units can be used as normal printing units if foil applications are not involved. Changeover requires minimal manual operation.
The principle behind the InlineFoiler
The InlineFoiler is designed to further enhance the print products through inline over-printing of the metallic images in the printing units on top of the cold foil. These images are defined by the areas where the adhesive ink is applied separated from the carrier foil and transferred to the paper.
The InlineFoiler equipment is usually placed at the second and third printing unit. With the first printing unit the adhesive ink is applied with normal offset plates onto the substrate. On those areas where the adhesive ink is placed onto the plate, the foil will be transferred onto the substrate. These areas can be lines, texts, solids and images.
In the second printing unit which is equipped with the InlineFoiler unwind unit the foil is transported in between the gap of the special blanket and the impression cylinder. These blankets contain a special miniature sphere structure which supports the transfer process.
On top of the third printing unit the rewind unit is located where the carrier foils and the "not required" foil are collected. After the cold foil is transferred, the substrates will undergo the traditional inline multicolor printing starting from the third printing unit.
The cold foil applications and business model
The ROLAND InlineFoiler can reproduce full solids, the finest details and line elements as well as halftone areas. Halftone areas with screen rulings up to 60 lines per centimeter (150 lpi) can be reproduced in high quality and, depending on the foil and substrate used, area coverage from 15 to 90 percent (without indexing function) or 30 to 80 percent ( with indexing) can be reproduced in outstanding quality. The same applies to fine lines (0.25 pt), letters (4 pt) and details, which can be reproduced with perfect edge definition. Subsequent embossing of the foil-enhanced sheets in a second pass is possible. With these advantages in technology, the ROLAND InlineFoiler enjoys a wide range of market applications in packaging, label and commercial printing.
Application Notes on ROLAND InlineFoiler
Cold foil increases the attractiveness of packaging products
Cold foil can be applied for cigarette labels
The application of cold foil for anti-counterfeiting printing with laser effect
One special application of cold foil can give the effect of metallic ink
The InlineFoiler is available for two series of ROLAND sheetfed presses: ROLAND 500 and the mainstream ROLAND 700. Manroland also provides printing solutions of various combinations of UV printing and traditional printing equipment, so printers can enjoy more value added printing options by achieving their unique business models through UV printing. Many users of ROLAND presses have succeeded in applying the InlineFoiler onto the printing of greeting cards, labels, high-quality folding cartons and high-end commercial printing. One fine example is Leunisman GmbH, a well-known packaging printer from Germany. Leunisman GmbH provides packaging printing for high-class health care products and cosmetics for its customers using a ROLAND 700 HiPrint equipped with eight printing units plus two coating units and InlineFoiler. These print products can be done in one pass with the InlineFoiler, followed by six-color UV ink overprint, and double coating application.
InlineFoiler + 4 color printing + coating workflow
