Ideal for post printing corrugated board, solid board, heavy-duty bags

Tokyo, Japan & Brussels, Belgium – Asahi Photoproducts, a pioneer in flexographic photopolymer plate development, today announced that it is relaunching AFP^TM-SE/DSE solid photopolymer flexographic printing plates to meet market demand for a single-source provider of printing plates for all flexographic printing applications. 

“We are seeing a demand from repro houses for a single-source flexo plate supplier that offers a variety of plate thicknesses to address all flexographic applications,” said David Galton, Sales Director for Asahi Photoproducts. “For that reason, we are making this plate available to offer a full range of solutions to our repro house customers, for a broad analogue and digital line of flexo plates. As we are doing in other printing segments, we will continue our focus on the corrugated post printing market in order to sustain innovation for this important application.

The Asahi AFP^TM-SE/DSE flexo plate is ideal for printing on corrugated board, solid board and heavy-duty bags, some of the toughest applications printing on highly abrasive substrates. The surface roughness of these substrates makes quality printing difficult to achieve. The Shore hardness of the AFP^TM-SE/DSE flexo plate and its resilience characteristics offer a perfect balance between high quality printing and long plate life on the printing press. Its wide exposure latitude ensures that image elements like halftone dots and isolated lines are optimally anchored, even with a relief depth of 3 mm. At the same time, intermediate depths form evenly, and the relief is produced with steep shoulders.

The highly flexible AFP^TM-SE/DSE flexographic plate from Asahi delivers:

• Low dot gain printing;
• Optimized durability for highly abrasive substrates;
• Excellent ink transfer; 
• Optimized plate resilience to minimize washboard effects; and
• Wide exposure latitude enabling good formation of halftone dots and fine negative elements.

“We are pleased to relaunch this plate in order to offer a full product range to our repro houses,” said Frank Spindler, Asahi’s Expert in Post-Printed Corrugated Board Applications. “It´s highlight quality is excellent, especially in combination with its high mechanical resistance and its ability to deliver low dot gain. As the demand for corrugated packaging continues to grow, we expect to see good market reception for this plate.”

Asahi AFP^TM-SE/DSE plates can be produced on all Asahi AFP and other compatible processing systems. AFP^TM-SE/DSE plates feature excellent compatibility with commonly used water-based ink systems.