Recommendations for printing conventional PMS inks on a UV Litho press?

tambo

Active member
We are running a UV Press, and run jobs requiring PMS colors. Can I run PMS colors with conventional inks? I understand I need hybrid rollers and blankets, but are there other issues I may into?
 
If you wish to run a 'mix' of UV inks and Conventional inks then you need rollers and blankets that are compatible with both. Also your press roller and blanket wash must be able to work with both. Are you coating the jobs with UV or AQ coating? . If your press is equipped with both UV lamps and an end of press IR Dryer you should be ok. If you are printing on non absorbent stock like foil or plastic with anything other than UV you might need extra care as adhesion could be an issue.
I have found running hybrid UV inks much easier than running full UV inks.
 
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I have found running hybrid UV inks much easier than running full UV inks.
My experience from prepress has been that hyrbids are the absolute worst of both worlds. We have a CD102 setup with all of the fancy hybrid rollers, isolated press washes, etc. and we run spot colors with almost every job UV/conventional/hybrid depending on the job. The hybrid jobs are the ones that cause the most grief in printing, prepress and quality control. We've tried 3 different ink vendors and experienced the same problems.

Given that Cornishpastythighs is in the UK the chemical environmental and safety regulations might be different enough that he is able to use alcohol, washes, inks and other chemicals which may be making a huge difference.
 
Have run Flint Gemini inks and Hybrite from Sun for many years Alcohol free of course and have had nothing but great success with Hybrid inks, we dont even bother running conventional inks anymore. Great ink/water window, no offset spray needed and great run speeds on both our Komori LS and Heidelberg 102 presses.
No weird chemicals used and all fully compliant with Health and Safety. Wouldn't run full UV inks unless we get jobs on Non Absorbent stocks.
 
A couple of notes:

Why not run UV PMS blends?
If UV coating in line, I recommend not to use conventional inks in this fashion.
 
I've seen no mention of a powdering unit. Often UV presses are not equipped with a powdering unit. If your press does not have one you would be well served to install one if your intention is to print with conventional inks.
 
you need to consider two most important issues

1 / the wash up of the units both in and out of the conventional and UV the units need to be conditioned so 2-3 washup often needed using the right washes

2 / what will you do for "spray powder" or is it to be UV coated??
 

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