InkFormulation Assortment

1 Company Confidential
 Assortment - Introduction

• assortment ???
• Preperation of an assortment
• Creating an assortment
• Analyzing an assortment

2 Company Confidential
 Assortment - general

• Selection of colorants
• Includes one or more transparent white
• Includes one substrate
• Colorants by colorant calibration

3 Company Confidential
 Assortment - preparation

4 Company Confidential
 Assortment - preparation

• The substrate
– Consistent quality
– Available in sufficient quantities
– Control metrological
– property

5 Company Confidential
 Assortment - preparation

• The balance
– Calibrated
– Three decimal places
– Colorant calibration,
formulation
• Printing machine
– Print samples on a high
professional machine →
quality, repeatability
– Settings (pressure, thickness,
power, speed)

6 Company Confidential
 Assortment - preparation

• Ink film thickness

– Thickness should correspond as
closely as possible to the press
• Temperature
– Avoid fluctuation of the temperature
• Measurement device
– Geometry
– Settings (filter, illumination, observer
angle)

7 Company Confidential
 Assortment – preparation – flexo/gravure

Flexo / Gravure
• Prepare the ink
– Stirring the basic components
– Mix the components for print ready

Basic Ink Additive Binder Solvent Print ready ink

8 Company Confidential
 Assortment – preparation – flexo/gravure

• Viscosity:
– Measure the viscosity
– Dilution in 2-4 steps to printing viscosity
– Write down:
percentage of solvent measured viscosity
– Important if working with viscosity module

9 Company Confidential
 Assortment – preparation – flexo/gravure

• Mixture of ink and transparent white

(TW)
• Different concentration steps:
Ink 100 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 0
TW 0 36 68 84 92 96 98 99 100

10 Company Confidential
 Assortment – preparation – flexo/gravure

• Print on all concentration steps

• →Video „flexoproof“
• store the print samples dark and cold

11 Company Confidential
 Assortment – preparation – offset

Offset
• Stir the ink and the TW
• Mix ink and TW in different
concentration steps

Ink 100 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 0
TW 0 36 68 84 92 96 98 99 100

12 Company Confidential
 Assortment – preparation – offset

• Calculation of the requested ink

– Instruction for IGT proofer
• Print the mixtures
• Video
• Store the dry samples dark and cold

13 Company Confidential
 Assortment – preparation – screen

Screen
• Prepare the ink and mix in different
steps with TW
Ink 100 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 0
tw 0 36 68 84 92 96 98 99 100

• Prepare the screen /doctor blade

• Print the inks
• video

14 Company Confidential
 Assortment – preparation – screen

• Long drying time

• Dry: store the print samples

15 Company Confidential
 Assortment – preparation

• Draw Downs are printed and dry

• Start to create an assortment!!!

16 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up - General

• First: general information about the

assortment

17 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up - General

• General information: substrat

– Designation
– Measure over
white /black
- Substrate type
Paper
Foil

18 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up - General

• Additional information:

19 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up - General

• Standard samples:
– Activate concentration entry
– Enter concentrations according to the chart
– Click OK
– Please click in the
first window as well
OK to close the
window

20 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up - General

• Data complete → OK
• Window „Define Assortment“ appears

21 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up - General

• At first: set up transparent white

22 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up - General

• Start to create the colorant calibration

• Workflow like defining transparent white

• Calibration for 1 ink complete → close

the assortment for backup
23 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up - General

• Additional information to the colorants

• Price
• Colorant strength
• Specific gravity
• Concentration percentage in recipe

24 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

Flexo/gravure

• Additional significant information:

– Solvent
– Viscosity
– Basic Materials

25 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Viscosity of colorant calibration

26 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Solvent entry
– Designation
– Viscosity
– Basic Materials
–…

27 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Set up Colorant

28 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Viscosity entry
– The software needs information about how
the viscosity of the ink acts with the defined
addition of solvent

29 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Practical procedure (1)

– Put an empty bin on a scale
– reset the scale and fill in one liter standard
ink
– evaluate the viscosity of the standard ink
– add solvent in steps of small quantities
until you reach the print viscosity

30 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Practical procedure (2)

– Enter the calculated quantity of solvent to
the viscosity window
– Proceed in the same way until you have
calculated each value
– To control the calculated values the curve
chart is available

31 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Target
– the crosses lay on the curve, the software can
follow the behavior of the ink and can give correct
information about the solvent

32 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Basic Materials
– Ink companies offer concentration concepts
– Supply the customer with basic materials instead
of print ready inks

Basic Ink Solvent

Print ready ink

Binder Additive

33 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Assortments are created with print

ready inks
• Definition of the basic materials for each
ink:
• Ink concentrate / Pigment
• Additive
• Binder / Varnish
• Solvent*

()* solvent either includes as basic ink or for dilution (define as

basic material or with viscosity)

34 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• First: Definition of the basic materials in

the database

35 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Then: assign the basic materials to the

colorant calibration

36 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – flexo/ gravure

• Recipe output
• Basic Material Print Ready Inks

identical

37 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – offset

Offset
• each assortment:
color layer entry
• After calibration →
enter film thickness
for every draw
down if deviation
occours

38 Company Confidential
 Assortment – Set up – screen

Screen
• No additional significant informations
like flexo / gravure
• Enter color layer entry -> thickness
object = standard screen

39 Company Confidential
 Analyze

• How to analyse the assortments?

• Diagnostic or
• calculated color distance

40 Company Confidential
 Assortment – analysis

• Diagnostic
– Reflectance spectra
– Curve Comparison
– Density spectra
– Reflectance
– Scattering
– Absorption

41 Company Confidential
 Assortment – analysis

• Curve comparison
• The better the theoretical curves agree with
measured curves, the better the formula result

42 Company Confidential
 Assortment – analysis

• Diagnostic shows quickly if measured

were exchanged if it wasn‘t correctly
operated

43 Company Confidential
 Assortment – analysis

• dE:
– Comparison between theoretical and
measurements are also shown in calculated dE‘s

44 Company Confidential
 Assortment – analysis

• dEmax should not be higher than 6

• One value higher and the curve also a
big distance → deactivate this
measurement

45 Company Confidential
 Assortment – analysis

What is acceptable?
→ Reflectance spectra are ok
→ Ink is bronzing (100% is overlapping the
lower ones)

46 Company Confidential
 Assortment – analysis

What is acceptable?
→ curves are very good, no bronzing

47 Company Confidential
 Assortment – analysis

What is acceptable?

OK

32% critical

48 Company Confidential