Functional expansion of laser printers

Laser printers have been used in light printing earlier with their higher quality printing and faster printing speeds. As an output device before light printing plate making, its core consumables - the price of toner cartridges is relatively high. The substrates for the output of large samples are mostly high-quality plain paper (for zinc oxide plates) and sulfuric acid paper (for PS plates). . With the advancement of technology, low-cost, long-life cartridges and their corresponding toners came into being. This has created favorable conditions for the expansion of the function of laser printers. The following is an extension of the CANNON JX 600 (A3) laser printer used in our factory.

First, plate making function

In general, the main workflow for light printing is a large sample for a laser printer (plain paper or sulfuric acid paper) → a zinc oxide plate of an electrostatic platemaking mechanism (or a special PS plate for a small platen for a printing machine) → a small offset printer. The practice of our factory has proved that the laser printer (A3 format) can not only be used to directly make zinc oxide plates, but also the plate making effect is obviously better than the electrostatic plate making machine, and the printing quality is close to the PS plate. Therefore, the above main work flow can be changed as follows: laser printing mechanism zinc oxide printing → small offset printing. This means that the laser printer (A3 format) partially replaces the electrostatic platemaking machine in light printing to realize computer-to-plate (CTP).

If there is no spelling software, you can use laser printers to make some zero-live versions, such as inserts with continuous tone images, cover letters with large font sizes, and so on. When it comes to continuously adjusting the image of the print, generally think of the first film (or sulfate paper), then the sun PS version, rarely think of zinc oxide version (because the zinc oxide version is obtained by the electrostatic plate mechanism, and generally The electrostatic platesetter does not have an image dot reproduction function. In fact, for small batches of images with images, the use of laser printing mechanism of zinc oxide printing, the effect is better, the cost is lower, the printing cycle is shorter. In addition, from the perspective of our factory's production practice, when using a small offset press to print cover letters with a large font size, the center of the writing is always somewhat imaginary, and it is thought that there is a problem with the offset printing press, but when the printing with a smaller font size is changed, it is not this circumstance occurs. The problem was explained on the plate, so we wanted to improve plate-making quality by deepening the plate-making concentration, but as the concentration increased, the bottom ash also increased. In the end, laser printers were used to directly make plates, and the printed ink characters were clear and full and no longer appeared.

If you have page-fighting software, you can directly use the laser printer to output the imposition sample on the zinc oxide plate. This will not only improve plate quality and imposition accuracy, but it will also shorten the platemaking cycle, and the cost of plate making will be comparable to that of electrostatic platesetters.

It is worth noting that, when using a zinc oxide printing machine with a laser printing mechanism, dirt spots appearing on the plate cannot be erased before the solid plate, like the electrostatic platesetter. Therefore, it is advisable to use the manual feeding method when making plates and ensure that the toner cartridge is free of scratches and the paper path is clean. Because the fixing temperature of the laser printer is not as high as that of the plate-fixing machine, the prepared zinc oxide plate should be solid-printed with a plate-fixing machine before printing on the machine. In addition, for laser printers that can easily switch the rear bezel, it is also possible to artificially prevent the zinc oxide plate from passing through output channels that may cause blemishes, allowing the zinc oxide plate to be leveled out (operation method is: the zinc oxide plate enters the output. After the paper path, open the tailgate.)

Second, the printing function

Compared to high-speed printers, the "printing" speed of laser printers is undoubtedly too slow, but for some very small batches of prints, it can be used to "print."

1. Contacts with photos

The address book with photos is mostly 64, and the number of people recorded is about 40, and the number of prints is about 50. Because the quality of its paper is good and the photographs are required to be clear, the printing is generally carried out using a sun-printed PS plate. Therefore, the printing cost is relatively high and the price is disadvantageous. The use of "printing" by a laser printer can basically ensure the quality of the product, but it can also eliminate the process of making PS plates, proofing, etc., and can reduce paper consumption, and ultimately reduce the production cost of this product. Of course, to realize this kind of product "printing" by a laser printer, first of all, there must be a piece of page software.

2. Simple business card, card

At present, there are a wide variety of business card papers and special papers on the market, which create happy conditions for using laser printers to create business cards and cards. Practice has proved that most business card paper (including tearing) and specialty papers can be exported from laser printers, and the special typesetting software used in the printing industry can easily accomplish the typesetting of such products. If a printing company wants to carry out such business operations, it does not need to invest in dedicated software and hardware for making business cards. Instead, it only needs to invest a small amount of money to purchase corresponding auxiliary equipment to carry out such business.

This is just our factory's production practice. The counterparts can also use the existing laser printer's extended functions when encountering similar business.