Olgiate Olona (Italy) – Simec Group, an Italian manufacturer of anilox, rolls and sleeves, which serves a wide number of industries internationally, will show at K-2022 (hall 4/A53), the new versions of Caboll rollers, a relevant step ahead into the technical and ecological innovation for printing and all other applications where chrome rollers are usually used.

To date, the innovations made by anilox manufacturers have mainly involved variations in engraving configurations and geometries. These have been designed to improve definition in print while maintaining a constant ink density on the print and at the same time trying to ensure a reduction in washing operations.

Looking closely at anilox today and considering a new evolutionary step, the real and great innovation is to use a different base material that can guarantee

• very high linearity engravings
• important hardnesses;
• a compactness such that it does not retain ink and layers within the cells which, as a consequence, lead to reduced volumes and the need to clean the anilox more frequently.

The adoption of a base material for the production of anilox would therefore entail a major technological evolution. Simec Group began researching and developing these new materials years ago and today has a specific structure for the production of new-generation anilox rollers, offered on the market under the Caboll brand.

Under the Caboll brand there are numerous product variants, which can be used as a replacement for galvanic chrome plating, for anodizing rollers, as an anti-stick coating or, in some applications, even with surface processing, as in the case of Caboll Print.

The technology used for many Caboll variants involves the application of different types of metal coatings from the carbide family with different compositions depending on the final application and different deposition technologies. For Caboll Print, Simec Group uses an innovative technology not yet available on the market.

Caboll Print was developed and already extensively tested in the label industry thanks to the collaboration with a leading printing machine manufacturer who immediately identified the benefits of Caboll technology, including

• Increased density on the printed surface and high dot definition, some 15% higher than a ceramic anilox.
• Greater stability compared to open-cell engravings.
• Substantial reduction in the number of aniloxes needed to cover all printing requirements and, therefore, optimization of investments.
• The same set of anilox can be used with UV, water-based and solvent inks.
• The same anilox kit can be used on different substrates such as coated paper, adhesive plastic substrates and non-adhesive plastic substrates.
• Used with cold foil, Caboll's technology enables better emptying of the anilox cells and uses smaller volumes than the ceramic roller. This results in an increase in resolution, easier system set-up and a substantial cost reduction on the print job.
• With white ink, the emptying capabilities of the Caboll anilox enable significantly higher opacity and coverage when compared to the use of ceramic anilox.

Simec Group is able to produce rolls of any size with this technology in all its versions. Today, thanks to the careful investments made over the past few years, production is entrusted to an important machine park, with 6 laser engraving plants and complete robotised lines for coating application. These plants ensure guaranteed production capacity even for large orders and volumes.

Caboll has also been successfully tested for backing rollers, calenders and non-adhesive versions.