Online Coater vs. Offline Coater

[Yoga]

Hello everyone,

Could you share your experience of benefits and limitations of online coating capability in offset printing machines?

Please provide knowledge about whichever method you use or know from others.

Thanks,

Yoga

 

[ruggersu]

We have an offline UV coater. It allows us to coat from any maching including digital. We put a baum sheet feeder in front of it so that is will coat 3,000 12"x18" sides per hour.

The draw back is that if we were coating inline it would be less total time.

Total cost was less than $30,000 including electrical. In line would have been substantially more.

We are a 12"x18" shop.

Dan Flatt
Commercial Printing Business Cards Company Elmira Bath Waverly Watkins Glen NY

 

[Yoga]

Thanks Dan.

Looking for more replies!

 

[rich apollo]

Online is more efficient. Cuts time, handling of sheets, and can make the job ready for post-processing immediately.

Offline is more versatile, and requires less capital up front. You can feed materials through an offline coater that you might not want to try to run through your press.

The question is, "What do you want to coat?"

If you're wanting to coat pieces that you're printing on your own press, then go inline. If you're wanting to coat items from inkjet printers, silk screen printers, and/or digital presses then offline makes more sense.

 

[Yoga]

Suppose I buy a machine for speed, would it be an issue if the inline coater is not used for a particular job?

I would like to know about this assuming that it will not be a UV coater and hence will only be a unit at the delivery end of the machine.

Thanks,

Yoga