OPM Group in Leeds have installed an additional Nilpeter printing press with GEW ArcLED hybrid UV curing to boost energy savings and to extend their commercial offer.
OPM (Labels & Packaging) Group Limited is a specialist label converter based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The company’s product range includes innovative high quality 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 5 arc lamp stations and 4 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 their clients a wider range of products.
Chris Ellison, managing director of OPM Group, explains: “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 ArcLED hybrid UV system OPM were 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 175 m/min, much faster than was ever possible before.
And Ellison adds: “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 high efficiency E2C/LW2 ArcLED lampheads brings further benefits of considerable savings in electricity consumption. Ellison concludes: “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.”
Find out more about the E2C and LED Cassette GEW technology that went into this installation: