Fachpack 2007: tesa EasySplice® FilmLine for films

tesa EasySplice® FilmLine for films: Flying splices now also for packaging printing

With the EasySplice® product line for smoothly and conveniently changing rolls of paper, tesa AG revolutionized the offset and heat offset printing processes in just a few years. Now tesa is repeating this technological breakthrough in packaging printing, with its newly developed product tesa EasySplice® FilmLine.

tesa EasySplice® Film Line

The tesa EasySplice® assortment has proven its worth in the printing and paper industry due to its superior quality, high efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. The process of splicing – adhering the ends of paper webs together when changing rolls – as optimized by tesa supports the factors crucial to competing in the industry today: continual improvements in efficiency through faster roll changes and considerably reduced rates of tearing, enhanced automation, outstanding print quality.

In flexible packaging printing, which works with both flexo and gravure techniques, the production processes still offer room for optimization. Roll changes still typically take place at reduced print speeds. tesa EasySplice® FilmLine offers a completely new system solution tailored to the specific requirements of packaging printing and the film processing industry.

The double-sided adhesive tape, which is based on a newly developed adhesive, is particularly suitable for splicing nonpolar materials that are actually very difficult to adhere, such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), but can also be used without any difficulty on aluminum and paper. From a technological point of view, the product is impressive for its particularly high tolerance to tension and strain, even at high temperatures, and for its initial tack, which comparison testing has shown to be five times greater than that of other double-sided adhesive tapes used on the market today.

The new product’s characteristics, in combination with the EasySplice technology, offer other major advantages as well: So that air cannot penetrate under the start of the roll, the tape opens, like a zipper, only during the contact phase. This structure makes it possible to run the bale at a significantly higher rotation speed. At the same time, errors that occur when a tape opens prematurely are also prevented.

The new tesa technology can be used on all flexo and gravure printing machines equipped for flying splices. Around the world, flexo and gravure printing are weighted differently: In North America, 80 percent of printers work with flexo technology. In Asia, flexo currently holds a market share of 20 percent, but is steadily gaining ground, with growth rates in the double digits. In Europe, the two methods are used equally for printing packaging for the consumer goods industry is printed using each of the two methods. In both flexo and gravure printing, processing speeds average 250 meters per minute. The possibility of increasing printing speeds to a safe, reliable 800 meters per minute brings great potential to tesa AG and its partners in the printing industry: In test markets, efficiency improvements were found to average two percent, but even rose as high as ten percent.