WEKO Encourages drupa Visitors to 'Work With Precision'
Using the motto, "Don't play — work with precision," WEKO presents innovative solutions and concepts at this year's drupa, facilitating process optimization for the user both in digital printing and sheetfed offset. The company, owner-managed for more than 60 years, positions its products between printing and further finishing, bridging the gap between these two processing operations.
"We constantly continue to develop our products – especially in the area of powder spraying for offset printing," Marcel Konrad, managing partner of WEKO, says. "Alternative technologies, such as LED UV print – promising to manage without powder – meanwhile press into the market. However, high product quality, frictionless production processes and high processing speeds make an extremely thin, precision-applied powder coat indispensable for further processing of the printing products. Our passion is to improve good products even further ... and this always includes a touch of powder."
STEP Technology – Precise Powder Application has a New Name
The WEKO powder spraying technology is employed worldwide by all significant manufacturers of offset printing presses. The current AP series sets the highest standards for application efficiency, repeat accuracy and cycling of the powder application precisely for each sheet. Can this quality still be topped? The WEKO engineers answered the question in the affirmative and developed the STEP application technology.
Exact Cycling is the Key
The objective consisted of designing a powder spraying system that cycles as exactly and precisely for each sheet as an electronic signal, and at maximum printing speeds. To achieve this goal, powder cycling had to be brought as closely as possible to the sheet. This has been accomplished with WEKO STEP. The powder is metered exactly to the milligram into an air flow. Cycling only takes place immediately before the sheet. Nearly digital individual sheet cycling is thus possible even at maximum speeds of up to 22,000 sph. The new STEP technology will be presented to the interested technical audience for the first time at drupa 2016 as developmental study.
Minimum and repeatable powder application guarantees the quick, process-optimized further processing for oil-based and UV applications and reliably prevents offsetting of print sheets as well as glass plate effects.
"Modern powder spraying systems combine economy and ecology in a unique manner," Konrad says.
