New generation of direct web printers

Last year Mul­ti­vac Mark­ing & Inspec­tion launched the DP 230, the first mod­el in a new gen­er­a­tion of direct web print­ers, for inte­grat­ing into R 08x and R 1xx ther­mo­form­ing pack­ag­ing machines. From the 4th quar­ter of 2018 onwards, the new mod­els of direct web print­ers will also be avail­able for the R 2xx and R 5xx ther­mo­form­ing pack­ag­ing machines.
When the new gen­er­a­tion of direct web print­ers was devel­oped, there was a par­tic­u­lar focus on meet­ing the lat­est hygiene and safe­ty stan­dards. As with the machines of the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion, the new direct web print­ers are based on a stain­less steel and anodised alu­mini­um con­struc­tion. All exposed edges are cham­fered and dead space has been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly avoid­ed. This means that liq­uid can eas­i­ly drain away dur­ing cleaning.

Product improvements

The inno­va­tions include hygiene cylin­ders with stain­less steel con­nec­tions on the film brake and hybrid cables for all con­nec­tions to the pack­ag­ing machine. The cov­er plates are spe­cial­ly designed for use in the food sec­tor and are per­fo­rat­ed for ease of clean­ing. Since secu­ri­ty against loss of prod­uct has a high pri­or­i­ty in the med­ical and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tors, the DP 230 direct web print­ers for these indus­tries are sup­plied with sol­id cov­er plates and plex­i­glass windows.
The com­pa­ny cur­rent­ly dif­fer­en­ti­ates between two mod­els: the DP 210 is equipped with an x‑axis propul­sion index­er, which enables the print­er to move at right angles to the film run­ning direc­tion, so that mul­ti­ple packs in a pack row can be print­ed. The DP 230 on the oth­er hand is equipped with an x‑axis and y‑axis propul­sion index­er. This means that the print­er can move not only at right angles to the film run­ning direc­tion but also in the film run­ning direc­tion itself, enabling all the packs of a par­tic­u­lar for­mat to be print­ed. Ther­mal trans­fer and ther­mal inkjet print­ers are used as the print­ing technology.
The mod­els are avail­able in each ver­sion for cut-off lengths up to 400 mm and 900 mm. This means that the direct web print­ers are ide­al­ly designed for each film width and for all the avail­able for­mats on the ther­mo­form­ing pack­ag­ing machine. State-of-the-art ser­vo motors ensure that max­i­mum speed and print­ing accu­ra­cy are achieved.

Compact design

The com­pact design and user-friend­li­ness of both series also offer sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits. Since the direct web print­ers are fit­ted above the seal­ing sta­tion before the con­trol cab­i­net, the load­ing area remains com­plete­ly free. In the case of the larg­er ther­mo­form­ing pack­ag­ing machines from the R 1xx series onwards, both the DP 210 and DP 230 can be equipped as an option with a mobile hold­ing device, so that they can eas­i­ly be pushed to the side when chang­ing the seal­ing die. This means that the seal­ing sta­tion is then eas­i­ly acces­si­ble. When the machine is to be put back into oper­a­tion, the direct web print­er is sim­ply pushed over the safe­ty guard again, and the load­ing area is once more com­plete­ly free.