The first lamp is after the first printing unit to cure white, the second is after the fourth printing unit to cure all the four colours and the rest three have been installed at the end-of-the-press to cure the entire job at high speeds.

Baljeet Singh of Royal Offset says UV curing helps dry the sheets faster while the special printing inks on non-absorbent substrates and coating gives the impact. “Now, we are doing hybrid or mixed UV coatings, too, and the results are fantastic,” he says, adding, “We didn’t find any difference in online and offline coatings. We realised that offline coating is better, especially when it comes to the production planning offering higher flexibility and UV ink cost savings. Alpna has its own converting unit and it helped them a lot in improvisation of the equipment. Its R&D is good and specialises in coating and curing.”

Singh’s only suggestion to Alpna is to develop, train and deploy skilled manpower in the industry. “The machines are good, but we lack trained manpower,” he said. He gives an example: “We were not able to gain the right texture pattern of UV coating, but we did our own R&D and got it.”

In the offline coater, Royal usually runs the machine at the speed of more than 6,000 sph and the machine can be operated at the speed of 8,000 sph. Singh especially appreciated Alpna equipment for its consistent high speed performance with near zero breakdown.