CD surface decoration printing plan

The optical disc manufacturing industry is a young industry in China. It started in the 1990s and has only 10 years of history. In the 21st century, the information industry developed rapidly. As a brand-new recording medium, the optical disc has become more and more popular with the general public. At the same time, its multi-faceted performance has been widely used in various industries.

In recent years, recordable CD-ROM production bases have gradually taken shape in the Yangtze River Delta region and Guangdong Province, and Guangdong, in particular, has shown a strong momentum of development. With the accelerated pace of opening up, the world’s largest recordable disc manufacturers, “Central” and “Lede”, have joined Jiangsu Nantong and Kunshan Economic Development Zone and Bonded Zone. It can be said that China's optical disc industry has rapidly entered the international optical disc industry threshold, and the industrial structure gradually changes from inward to outward.

In the face of such an emerging industry, all optical disc manufacturers are also constantly improving all aspects involved in the reproduction of optical discs. Here, we are concerned with the surface decoration of CDs and the printing of CD-ROMs on them.

We are already familiar with the printing of paper as printing media, and what will print be like when the paper becomes 1.2mm thick polycarbonate (PC) material?

In general, domestic optical disc production is mainly divided into two major categories, ie, read-only optical discs and recordable optical discs. In terms of printing methods, the vast majority of optical disc printing uses screen printing and offset printing. However, as technology continues to advance, more advanced printing technologies will be applied to optical disc printing. Digital inkjet has been used successfully in production. Ink printing, flexo printing, etc. It is reported that the latest equipment for the printing of optical discs by the Japan Culture Seiko Co., Ltd. has been launched, which has brought more joy to the optical disc printing industry.

Disc printing is not only a reflection of the contents of the disc, but also brings a good visual experience for the customer. Therefore, from another perspective, it can be said that the disc printing is a kind of value-added processing of the disc. This is the reason. As a result, the quality of optical discs has received increasing attention from customers in the competition of optical disc duplication.

But even so, we can easily find that the overall quality of the disc printing is still not satisfactory, and still can not be compared with the paper printing. The effect of different ways of printing the optical disc is different. How do you choose between different printing methods?

Screen printing thick choice

Prior to the printing of optical discs, screen printing was the main method. This type of printing method was considered to be the most effective method for optical disc printing because of its wide range of printing (from monochrome to multicolor printing). Most optical discs today are Printed in this way.

At present, most CD-ROM manufacturers' equipment is basically configured around screen printing, and some manufacturers even have only screen-printing machines. The main suppliers of this type of equipment are Henderson, Guanyin, and Leiming in Taiwan Province, Seiko Culture in Japan, and Muroto in Germany.

Screen printing CDs mainly have the following features.

1. Ink thickness

In the color halftoning printing, the thickness of the ink layer affects the shade of the graphic and the reduction of the hue and the size of the color shift. The direct “consequence” of ink layer thickness is bright color, giving people a feeling of fullness and strong three-dimensionality. This is a point that screen printing is proud of. For large areas of the field, text and other patterns, the screen Printing is also more handy. In fact, the pattern of the printing surface of the optical disc, especially the products of earlier years, is mainly based on a large area of ​​the field, text, etc. This also caters to the characteristics of screen printing.

From another perspective, if you trace back the “cause” of the thick layer of screen printing ink, it is easy to imagine that the consumption of ink is larger. Compared with offset printing, the ink layer after screen printing is better than offset printing. To be about 3 times thicker, this virtually increases the cost of optical disc printing. For some optical disc manufacturers that have different printing methods such as screen printing and offset printing, this is very different in the face of different batches of optical disc products. It is worth considering.

Something farther away, how thick can the ink layer affect the print quality of the disc? First is the slow speed of ink curing, followed by shrinkage of the ink film, which can cause the disc to shrink, or even bend, causing quality problems. problem.

2. Low precision

Due to restrictions on screen printing and raw materials, the screen printing image accuracy is generally only 133 lines/inch, usually 80-120 lines/inch. The dot reproduction range is generally 10% to 85%, so the cable products Delicateness and sense of hierarchy are not enough.

3. low cost

The reason why screen printing has become the first choice for CD printing investors is mainly due to the low cost of equipment. In addition, some screen printing supplies (such as ink, etc.) are not very expensive.

Offset printing

The continuous development of technology has enabled offset printing to be added to the ranks of CD-ROM printing. It can also be said that people's increasing demand for CD-ROM printing quality has stimulated the emergence of new countermeasures. At present, the suppliers of CD offset printing equipment mainly include German card stability, Taiwan Henderson, Guanyin, and Japanese Seiko. Palace waist and so on, they are also the main suppliers of optical screen printing equipment. Offset-intervention-disc printing has also brought about its excellent quality in paper printing, injecting fresh blood into disc printing.

There are two types of common optical disk offset printing equipment: one is a full-disc type offset printing apparatus, and the other is a combination of a screen printing apparatus and a back-end offset printing area.
(to be continued)