UK company first to deploy GEW hybrid ArcLED UV system
OPM Group in Leeds has installed an additional Nilpeter printing press with GEW hybrid UV curing to boost energy savings and to extend its commercial offer.
OPM (Labels & Packaging) Group is a specialist label converter based in West Yorkshire, England. The company’s product range includes self-adhesive labels and flexible packaging solutions including laminates, sachets, lidding film, flow wrap and flexible packaging.
In 2015 OPM acquired a customised configuration of a UV curing system installed on a Nilpeter F4* flexo printing press with nine GEW systems comprising five arc lamp stations and four LED UV lampheads together with ArcLED RHINO electronic power supplies and a chill roller with each print unit. The configuration is able to print flexo and coatings on multiple substrates and multi-layer compounds.
The decision to invest in the GEW ArcLED UV system was due to OPM’s desire to reduce energy use, increase productivity and to offer its clients a wider range of products.
Chris Ellison, managing director of OPM Group, explained: “Tactical use of UV LED on certain print units has doubled this machine’s productivity and our capability to manufacture special new products. Only GEW was able to offer us this package of efficiency, capability and reliability.”
With the GEW ArcLED system OPM was able to achieve significantly higher speeds as LED curing is used to target and relieve processes that were bottlenecks with conventional arc lamp UV curing. The high intensity longwave output of GEW’s LED UV lamps enable these processes to be run at speeds of up to 175m/min, much faster than was possible before.
Ellison added: “A guaranteed level of ink cure with reduced power settings gives us the peace of mind that the packaging we produce is fully cured. Adding to the fact that we are full low migration packaging producers this is very important.”
GEW’s ArcLED RHINO UV system based on the E2C/LW1 ArcLED lampheads brings further benefits of considerable savings in electricity consumption. Ellison concluded: “The hybrid arc/LED plug and play functionality combined with the RHINO electronic power supply reduces our electricity bill. Our initial investment effort is recouped quickly through faster, stable production with no downtime.”