What types of flexo plate mounters are available, and which one is best for my needs?
Flexo plate mounting is a vital stage in flexographic printing, significantly speeding up the process and enhancing efficiencies during pre-press. This crucial step ensures that plates are accurately positioned, directly impacting the final print’s quality and consistency.
Before investing in a plate mounter for your business, it’s essential to understand the market landscape, the different types of mounters available, and which options best suit your specific application needs. Additionally, selecting a machine that can scale with your business is critical to protecting your investment from becoming redundant as your operations grow.
Below, we’ll walk you through our comprehensive range of flexo plate mounters, explaining their main differences and the critical factors to consider when choosing.
At Heaford, we offer a range of mounters designed to meet the diverse needs of various printing applications.
The first consideration is the various applications you are printing. Our range of flexo plate mounters has been specifically designed for these applications, allowing us to tailor their features to improve the pre-press stage’s efficiencies.
Label production involves high-speed runs and frequent job changes, necessitating quick setup and consistent quality. The challenge is achieving accurate plate mounting to maintain print quality across various substrates. Heaford’s specialised mounters provide automated plate alignment and user-friendly interfaces for rapid transitions.
Please see our label range of plate mounters.
Envelope printing demands precise plate mounting for accurate registration on different sizes and materials. The challenge lies in maintaining precision at high speeds and with varying dimensions. Heaford’s envelope mounters ensure exact plate placement and efficient handling of diverse envelope sizes.
Please see our envelop range of plate mounters.
Flexible packaging requires precise plate mounting to ensure accurate print registration on delicate materials. The main challenges include maintaining consistency and avoiding deformation during printing. Heaford’s tailored machines offer precise plate positioning and features to handle these demands efficiently.
Please see our flexible packaging range of plate mounters.
Corrugated printing requires robust plate mounting systems to handle thicker materials and uneven surfaces. The challenge is to avoid registration issues and print defects. Heaford’s corrugated-specific mounters offer enhanced durability and precision, ensuring high-quality results on corrugated substrates.
Our machines come in various web-width sizes, each designed to meet the needs of the final print application.
Flexographic printing is commonly divided into three web-width size brackets: narrow-web, medium-web, and wide-web. While our machines fit into these brackets, many of them cross over, and we find it easier to define them by their actual sizes.
That said, we can still match the web width size you’ll need to the web width size of your current flexographic printing operation.
Our web-width sizes depend on the first consideration of the application you are printing.
Application | Smallest Web-Width Size | Largest Web-Width Size |
Labels | 700mm (27.5”) | 1100mm (43”) |
Envelopes | 500mm (27.5”) | 1100mm (43”) |
Flexibles | 1100mm (43”) | 2800mm (110.2”) |
Acanalado | 3000mm (118”) | 3600 (142”) |
Heaford offers a comprehensive range of flexo plate mounters to suit different operational needs, including manual, semi-automatic, and automatic options.
Manual flexo plate mounters offer cost-effective precision, making them ideal for smaller operations or startups. Although they require more hands-on involvement, they provide reliable and accurate plate mounting at an affordable price.
Semi-automatic flexo plate mounters combine manual precision with automation elements, offering a balanced solution for growing businesses. These mounters enhance efficiency and reduce operator workload, providing a perfect middle ground between manual and fully automated systems.
Automatic flexo plate mounters deliver high-speed, fully automated solutions for large-scale production. These mounters offer maximum efficiency and precision with minimal operator intervention, making them ideal for high-volume operations seeking to optimise productivity.
One of the biggest challenges with traditional flexo plate mounters is their potential to become redundant as a business scales, leading to increased costs and inefficiencies. To address this issue, Heaford has recently launched the ModularMount system, a flexible solution designed to adapt and grow your business. The ModularMount system offers a range of customisable options, with its main unique selling point being its five-stage scalability. This allows businesses to start with a manual mounter and upgrade progressively to a fully automated AutoMounter or AutoMounter+ machine.
Choosing ModularMount means investing in a system that evolves with your business, offering significant benefits such as reduced redundancy, cost efficiency, and seamless upgrades. The ModularMount system is designed with the future in mind, providing a flexible and adaptable solution for businesses of all sizes, ensuring unmatched performance and value at every growth stage.
Investing in a flexo plate mounter can enormously benefit your pre-press stage, greatly enhancing efficiency and print quality. However, choosing a suitable machine can be challenging, given the variety of options. With the three primary considerations explained above: application, web-width size, and process, we hope you now have a deeper insight into the available machines and which are best suited to your current operation.
If you would like to discuss your unique needs for a flexo plate mounter, our friendly and knowledgeable team is ready to assist with any questions. Please contact us, and we will get back to you promptly to provide the guidance you need.