China's Screen Printing Machinery Development (I)

The status of screen printing machinery application Since the reform and opening up, China's screen printing industry has developed rapidly, but the development of screen printing equipment supporting it has lagged behind and is in a passive position, resulting in low overall equipment level of screen printing industry and low penetration of mechanized equipment. The low degree of automation and low self-sufficiency of equipment are the practical problems that screen printing equipment manufacturing industry must take seriously. According to the current development of China's screen printing industry, most of the medium and small manufacturers still rely mainly on labor-intensive manual operations. Their production methods are simple and their scale is relatively small. According to the latest sample survey conducted by the Screen Printing Association, the use of production units and equipment engaged in screen printing in China can be roughly divided into five types.
Class A plant. The number of employees is less than 10, accounting for 19.6% of the total industry, of which the brother-type, husband-and-wife factory accounts for 20%, narrow range of printed products, the quality is not high; basically distributed in small towns and villages, with manual platform machine For the main equipment or pure manual operation, generally have 1-2 semi-automatic platform machines.
Class B plant. 10-20 employees, accounting for about 27% of the total industry, are scattered in small towns, throw small-scale manual screen printing equipment, in addition to common running platform equipment, some also have curved screen printing machine and round Plate printing machine and other equipment, or multiple medium and small format semi-automatic platform screen printing machine, this type of screen printing factory miscellaneous products, a wide range of services, products and more social printing, clothing tag, T-shirt printing, Also share the processing business for specialized plants.
Class C plant. There are 20-40 employees, accounting for 25.8% of the whole industry. They are mainly distributed in middle-level cities and have complete sets of equipments. In addition to the traditional platform screen printing equipment, they generally have serialized semi-automatic screen printers and automatic drum nets. Printers and various special screen printers and other equipment, most of the fixed point to undertake the export of goods packaging and decoration products, various types of tag and color printing, outdoor advertising and other major businesses, also兼营other related businesses.
Class D plant. 40-100 employees, accounting for 22.4% of the industry, mainly distributed in large and medium-sized cities, basically complete sets of screen printing equipment, serialized semi-automatic screen printing machine, plane screen printing and surface screen printing equipment, large-format screen printing capacity Some also have offset printing, pad printing, hot stamping, indentation die cutting and other related equipment, can undertake a variety of packaging and decoration, trademarks, indoor advertising, etc.; professional printing plant has a semi-automatic rib machine, wheel transfer printing Machines and post-processing equipment, such as drying, can meet the needs of high-volume textile and apparel printing. Professional electronic circuit boards or membrane switch screen printing plants have precision semi-automatic and automatic screen printing equipment.
E type factory. With more than 100-200 employees, this large-scale screen printing factory currently has a small number, accounting for only about 5.2% of the entire industry. It is basically built in large and medium-sized cities and has relatively complete advanced screen printing equipment, including a pre-press graphic processing system. ,Laser irradiation discharge film,Chemical coating sensitized adhesive,Projection printing plate making equipment,More advanced series of semi-automatic screen printing equipment and automatic screen printing production line and other equipment,especially when the large format screen printing equipment is complete,some Large format color inkjet equipment is also available. Such enterprises have basically reached the level of modernization, production scale, and product standardization. They have the ability to undertake printing of various high-grade screen printings and are representative of the advanced productivity of screen printing in China.
Based on the above circumstances, the current focus of China's screen printing machinery development can be placed in the following three areas:
1) Give priority to meeting the needs of E-type and D-type screen printer manufacturers, and develop and produce various advanced equipment for them as soon as possible. This is also the main product that competes with overseas screen printing machinery manufacturers, and is a key position that we must protect;
2) Providing timely and reliable equipment with high quality and high efficiency for screen makers of category C and B. Helping enterprises to quickly reach the domestic advanced level in the installation. This type of screen printing plant has great potential for development, with the largest number of manufacturers and new models. The demand for screen printing equipment is enormous;
3) Type A screen printing factory has a weak foundation, backward production conditions, and is widely distributed. It is a backup force for the development of China's screen printing industry. It should help them improve their production methods as soon as possible, and replace their current backward equipment with more advanced screen printing equipment. .
The development direction of screen printing machinery The development of screen printing machinery in China has entered a new stage, at the level of research and development...
1. Screen printing equipment in screen printing in developed countries, screen printing plate technology has also experienced manual plate making, photoengraving, laser photocopying and computer direct plate making process, has evolved from analog plate-making to the plate-making stage. Digital platemaking can not only faithfully reproduce originals, but also carry out various image processing and new ideas on the originals to make the prints more perfect. Moreover, digital plate making technology has been developed toward the direction of non-film plate making, gradually eliminating the original production process and equipment of printing plates, saving a lot of time and costs. For example, JetScreen from Luescher, Switzerland, directly sprays the wax on the surface of the screen to form a wax coating that can cover the surface of the screen. After exposure, the belt is washed with hot water. A wax layer with image information processing can form a screen. This technology can reduce two-thirds of the traditional process, the largest range of up to 3000mm × 7000mm, resolution 75 lines / inch, print repeatability up to 0.02mm; Moreover, because of the use of digital direct inkjet screen technology, can use FM network outlets Plate making evades the long-standing problem of moire on the prints.
The majority of screen printing operations in China still remain in the traditional analog-manufacturing stage. Manufacturers with better conditions have just begun to use laser photofinishing output films and projection magnification printing technology, which is far from the advanced level. Fortunately, China's scientific research personnel are working hard to do this. For example, the Stone CTP-20000 inkjet platemaking system recently launched by Beijing Stone Corporation marks that domestic screen printing equipment has begun to move toward digital plate making, and platemaking technology should It is one of the focuses of our future research and development. (To be continued)