Nürtingen's IST METZ Group turned the spotlight on the innovative use of UV in commercial, label and packaging printing during its in-house exhibition from 16 to 19 May. More than 600 visitors from 30 different countries participated in this unique industry event at Nürtingen in South Germany

NÜRTINGEN - UV drying systems are already used today for the most varied of printed products. The fifth UV DAYS event, took place at Nürtingen's IST METZ in May, showed guests exactly how to achieve perfect printing results right from the word go, remaining within budget and expanding the market range: "Using concrete examples, we demonstrated how UV can open up completely new possibilities for sheet-fed offset printing and digital printing," explained Dirk Jägers, Managing Director of the IST METZ Group. The new LED technology played also a decisive role, with four practical examples presented on four different presses.

Saving energy and opening up new possibilities in printing is made possible, as is often the case, by the clever combination of the right components. It was thus showed at UV DAYS 2011 in Nürtingen how UV sheet-fed offset can be used to economic advantage. It all comes down to following the right recipe, i.e. combining colours that have been originally developed for LED use with efficient UV units that have a lower power output. Presented on the company's training and demo machine for the first time was the new IST Compact Unit. This is a one-lamp unit which is installed after the last printing unit. It allows for the production of standard process-colour print jobs using standard densities without varnish. There are no restrictions in terms of printing speed.

UV technology is also making an appearance in the area of digital printing. Using an inkjet label printer, the use of a high-performance MBS^®-5 InkJet UV unit has been demonstrated. The air-cooled UV system functions as an end-of-press drying and provides for an immediate curing of the inks. After the inline punching, each visitor will receive his own personalised label.

Inkjet printing systems are also making it possible to impressively touch up printing jobs offline. Spectacular effects can be achieved with a distinct application of varnish. This is another possibility for enhancing printing results that has been demonstrated live, together with technology partner, at the UV DAYS event.

Pad printing has also been used as an example to demonstrate the use of LED UV. Here, the LUV^® LED UV unit has been integrated into a pad printing machine. The advantage to LED units is their ability to be dimmed, as well as the immediate availability of 100 percent output which enables the LED UV unit to be switched on and off in accordance with the stamping cycle. The result: Superb drying qualities with the lowest possible energy consumption and a low level of heat built up on the radiated object.

"With this year's range of topics, we wanted to show visitors that we are not just a company concerned with the classic applications that make printing processes better, faster and much more efficient," explains Dirk Jägers. (However, this area has naturally also been the focus of many exhibits and presentations.) In addition to the talks and demonstrations that took place on printing machines (one owned by the company and three on loan for the event), there were product presentations given by around 20 industry partners in the spacious ground floor of the expanded Plant 2, with plenty of new ideas concerning current themes from the printing industry awaited our international guests.

UV DAYS is now an event that attracts visitors from all over the world who have an interest in UV printing, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by the organisers of this year's event, the fifth of its kind at IST METZ. Therefore, the presentations were not only offered in German and English this year. There were guided tours held in the IST METZ plants conducted in languages ranging from French to Russian to Chinese. On these tours, visitors were shown the production of UV lamps and power supply devices, the coating of UV reflectors, as well as the assembly of entire UV units.

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