LED-UV Offset Technology Cures Carlisle Printing Owner's 'Wish List'

Marcus Wengerd (far right) poses with Carlisle employees in front of their 10-color Manroland LED-UV long perfector.

SUGARCREEK, Ohio — January 24, 2017 — Carlisle Printing is nestled in the middle of Ohio’s Amish country. "It may surprise you, but the Amish were early adopters of LED lighting in their homes," points out Marcus Wengerd, owner. "The Amish here use solar panels and DC batteries, so LED lighting was a great fit for them. I had been studying LED technology and realized several years ago that LED would change UV curing forever.

"My workforce is my greatest asset and their Amish roots are a big part of our success story," he adds. "They take great pride in their jobs and their workplace. I want to provide the kind of printing plant that they can be proud of — the kind of shop that not only puts out top-quality work, but is also highly efficient and clean."

That quest for high-quality reproduction, quick turn times and pressroom cleanliness led Wengerd to embrace the inherent advantages that LED-UV offset technology provides. Carlisle Printing recently celebrated the two-year anniversary of installing its 10-color Manroland sheetfed offset long perfector equipped with an AMS LED-UV curing system.

"Getting rid of the spray powder in the pressroom was a huge leap forward in plant cleanliness. I believe offset printing can, and should be, 'copier clean and simple.' In my view, LED-UV is the closest that litho has come to digital when you are looking for cleanliness, quick turnarounds and premium quality.

"LED-UV has also provided us what I call a 'multiplier effect' of many benefits that interact to make Carlisle Printing better. Whether good or bad, things tend to snowball or multiply against each other, especially in a printing plant," according to Wengerd.

And, even though UV ink and coatings costs may be nearly double the price of conventional sheetfed litho consumables, he stresses that the subsequent reductions in paper waste enabled by LED-UV due to faster job makereadies and better color control, and the faster job turnarounds, more than make up for the higher consumables costs.

Wengerd started and kept a running list to document the benefits that LED-UV technology has provided Carlisle Printing. "I can’t necessarily say they would apply across the board to all print shops, but they’re based on my personal experiences with the particular job applications that we run," he clarifies.

• Faster press speeds mean more capacity
• No spray powder
• No buffing for laminating
• No waiting for lamps compared to conventional UV
• Less maintenance than conventional UV
• Fewer blanket washes
• No white gutter space needed
• No marking
• Perfecting jackets? Don’t need them anymore. We run on ones that would have been considered trash, or you can replace them with steel jackets
• Chiller away from the press/heat removal can be away from the pressroom
• Less AC tonnage required to cool our pressroom (every dollar of energy spent on traditional UV requires another dollar of air conditioning)
• We use the same profile for coated and uncoated paper
• No hickeys/no hickey delta effect to cause dot gain
• Save ink because of fewer washups
• Gained one hour per day of extra production because evening washups were eliminated
• Less fountain solution required
• Less press wash required
• Quicker blanket and impression cylinder washes because ink does not cure by oxidation
• Switched to 20 micron stochastic at the same time as switching to LED-UV
• Instant turnaround
• Cleaner pressroom
• Cleaner bindery
• Instant measuring of color data for profiling (no need to wait for dryback)
• Ability to print and varnish on two sides in one pass
• No heat distortion on plastics
• Long perfector will have same dot gain on side A as on side B
• Neater stacks to the cutter/bindery
• Less knife draw when cutting when no spray powder is used
• No offsetting or bricking
• LED curing can be adjusted to lower power when running lighter-coverage jobs
• Ink never dries in, on or around the press; therefore, we have a cleaner pressroom. If you have LED ambient lighting in your pressroom instead of fluorescent or metal halide, white LED lighting has no UV output. LED packs the power to give you what you need where you need it (i.e. UV in the press and no UV outside of the press)
• Perfecting 130-lb. cover stocks with varnish on both sides
• Material cost savings in paper, ink and press parts.