This story is about a real application of the Virtual Image tool.
The story
PLASCAN SA, based in Telde, Gran Canaria, needs to mount several jobs with plates without cross-marks.
On these old plates the cross-marks have been removed after the first mounting, in order to remove them from the print.
These jobs are frequently required by the customers, including well-know retail chains, and the mounting of these plates takes a lot of time and many attempts, using manual procedures like the squaring of the plates to match them as close as possible to the original...
Therefore, with these mountings sometimes it is necessary to adjust the plate to correct its position, and so stop the press.
The Resolution
With SysTec's Virtual Image it is possible to mount plates without marking crosses.
This solution is very unique in that it allows the user to record the position AND a visual image of every mounted plate.
You not only have an XY position of the mounted plate but also a "picture" of the plate in that position.
So with Virtual Image the customer can save the images of the reference plate, and use the shape of the elements on the plate, e.g. the profile of the words, and insert the following plates in the proper location superimposing the new plate over the shape of the previous one.
Here you may see some real application made in Plascan:
- a sack for Leroy Marlin, a 4 colors jobs with different words and graphic elements shall match
- an envelope for cakes, a 4 colors job, where the list of ingredients and other elements shall match with the graphic and the outer frame. Moreover in this job the mounting requires a staggered mounting of 3 plates for each line, at 120° one from the other. Our mounter can easily manage the automatic staggering of the angle positioning of the mandrel, simply "copying" the job in the desidered angle!
Benefits:
- ability to unlimited reuse of old plates
- ability to store the position of the plates in the mounter memory, with automatic positioning of the cameras and mandrel when a job is loaded
- drastic reduce of the time required to mount this kind of jobs
- ability to combine the position of the plates, even in case of small pieces of plate (e.g. barcodes), using the overlay function of the machine
- no more down time of the press for adjusting the position of the plates
Only with SysTec's mounter you can have this awesome tool, dude!
Author: Massimo Caliari