If your ink shelves could talk, what is one question you would probably hear? More than likely, it would be something along the lines of “why are you wasting so much ink?” Great question. Why are you wasting so much ink?
Typically, printing companies order the most used colors (C, M, Y, K, 185 red, reflex blue, etc.) in gallon ink jugs, 5-gallon buckets, or drums if demand is high enough. Seldom-used or one-off colors are mixed in-house. The problem of wasted ink lies with the in-house mixes. Often, regardless of the print run size, a gallon of ink is created for the job. In and of itself, it is no big deal. But multiply that one jug by all those jobs calling for that one “special” PMS color, and what you get is an ink room jammed with three-quarter filled jugs of custom colors you will never use again.
The initial step to not wasting ink is first determining how much ink you will need to run the job at hand. Is the job an all-day run with heavy coverage? Or is it a five-thousand-foot run consisting of just two lines of small print? By understanding your ink needs, you will be prepared for the second step.
Mix what you need to get the job done. There is no reason to mix eight pounds of ink if you only need two to complete the order. “But…we need to pour six pounds of ink into the pan just to get the rollers wet!” Valid point if you are using OEM pans. But we are assuming you have already streamlined your operations and made the switch to disposable ink pan liners. With that in mind, the answer to your ink savings – and a lot more open shelf space – is to supplement your standard-volume liners with DIPCO’s Low-Volume liner system.
Low-Volume systems work in conjunction with your existing DIPCO ink pan retainers. The system consists of a stainless-steel insert that is placed inside the retainer. A shallow, low ink-volume pan liner is then placed on top of the insert. This shallow liner effectively raises the minimum ink level needed to ink the rollers while slashing the overall volume of ink required to fill the liner to its optimum capacity.
By utilizing low-volume liners, ink needs are reduced between 25% and almost 75%. These percentages equate to savings of anywhere from 2.5 pounds to 10 pounds of ink, depending on the press equipment being run.
DIPCO manufactures Low-Volume liners for several popular narrow-web flexo models. But not all! So please, visit the Low Volume Kits section of our website or call us at 970-874-2852 for more information.
