Offset printer for small run

Hello,

My company has very small runs (500 a4 250g/m one color on the whole page) but needs to match a specific Lab value with a delta e lower than 0.5!!

So I was tasked to make it happen. Of course the budget is ( I think) too low and I don't have much experience in offset printing.

However it's clear to me that ink thickness should be controlled.

So my question is, what type of offset printer would you recommend? Are there manual printers that are suitable? If not maybe Heilderberg GTO?

Any help is appreciated.

 

Hi sir
if you want a delta e less than 0.5 it has nothing to do with the machine you have to use, it has a direct relationship with the quality of the fineness of the operator's work and the mastery of the field, so if you want to use a gto with a qualified driver you can add a spectrometer to make his task easier and the challenger has respected the instructions otherwise if you have a huge budget you can buy a machine with an axis control color control system which makes the automatic correction.
If you need more details please let me know

 

Do you recommend any semi automatic printers , that I can use ? Yes we do have a spectrophotometer .

 

Regarding your little budget you can use gto 46 it s good for A4 , but lile i told you as you have a spectrometer you need to challenge your operator to give a good printing quality , yes the technologie you use can help so much but it s all about the operator you have

 

GTO would do the job. But 500 sheets is too short run to measure density and make corrections during the run. Especially if you must be within 0.5. if you'll do the corrections during the run 500 sheets solid on GTO you'll produce nothing but waste.

You need to work it out before you start the actual run. Use as much waste as you can to run the colour to desired density and then check it after 100 and 200 sheets (stil make ready sheets) if colour is stable and meets the requirements, then you can run the actual job. If it's always the same colour, just wash the press without touching any settings, you'll have great start point for the next time.

 

to minimize the pass or calibration sheets you have to go over the printed sheets each time and add one or two sheets to check and so on if you are going to rectify the color again you have to go over the printed sheets to stabilize the ink and add two more white sheets as you go and check

 

If it is a single PMS color with no overprints, and consistent color is that important on such a short run, my suggestion would be to have your ink supplier mix you a batch of ink with lots of opacity. A fully opaque ink will be much more forgiving of deviations in hue than a more transparent ink.

 

You might also consider large takeoff bars placed in the trim area of the sheet. On a short run a large take off bar will make for a much quicker response to density changes. It may require an oversized sheet to accomplish these large takeoff bars but will make for a better end product if control is what your after.