Screen Printing
Screen printing is a versatile and efficient method of printing. A wide variety of materials can be decorated in combination with high tech inks, dyes and coatings that have been specifically formulated to suit many demanding indoor and outdoor applications.
Modern screen printing equipment allows for very precise registration, fast UV curing and high output with semi automatic machines. Since 1967 Permark have been screen printing and have built up an unrivalled depth of knowledge and experience in this field.
State of the art screen printing equipment coupled with experienced and qualified staff, and good quality systems such as ISO9001:2009 have resulted in many
awards and many more satisfied customers.
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Screen Printing produces solid vibrant colours
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Is able to print a theoretically unlimited number of colours and shades,
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Is able to adhere to almost any substrate.
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Can print very precise registration of multiple colours.
Light Operated Keyboard
Award Winning Print Quality: From clear polyester film this close up of a portion of graphic overlay is screen printed 13 spot colours with transparent tints to achieve specific light transmission. The keypad is operated by an infrared light and assists the disabled.
Screen Printing Capabilities
Ink System
Permark screen print CMYK, Spot Colour and half tones, or a combination of these, mainly with UV cured ink systems, and some solvent based inks. Ink system choice depends on the print design, product function and the substrate to be printed on.
Special Inks
As well as standard UV and Solvent based inks, a few examples of special inks that permark use are
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Silver, carbon and dielectric inks that are used to form printed circuits on flexible films.
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FDA approved Inks for use on parts that are in contact with food.
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High Temperature Inks - for applications where environment is very hot.
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Luminous Inks
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Dye Inks for printing into pores of aluminium.
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Solvent resistant inks - for labels that need ink to be resistant to solvents.
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Clear lacquers and coatings for "wetting out" textured plastics, for sealing and for UV protection.
A modern semi automatic screen printing machine in operation at Permark.
Screen Print Development of Diffused Light
Films used for diffusing light are found in many electronic appliances and in automotive applications. Permark not only convert "off the shelf" light diffusing films, but develop and screen print patterns that diffuse light in a particular way onto clear films, for example to iron out "hot spots" of light in an LCD display, or to achieve a specific ink density and specific transparency to allow just the right amount of light and brightness through.
"Dead fronts" can be printed to a specific ink density, so that, a panel looks plainly printed in a solid colour, but when back lit will show a symbol, such as you will find on the display in your car, if you are not wearing your seatbelt.
Colour Matching
Colour matching is normally carried using the Pantone PMS colour matching system, although other systems such as RAL can be used.
Colour matching can also be carried out by matching customer supplied samples. On these occasions, customer approved first off production samples are kept as control samples to match future production print runs to.
For "special" colours that cannot be matched to standard colour charts, computerised colour matching and ink formulation is sometimes employed to ensure colour consistency in instances where the volume and print repeat frequency warrants it.
Substrates that can be printed on:
Permark are able to print on many materials, generally as long as the materials print area is flat, and of a size that can be managed on one of their many screen printing machines, it can be printed. Many types of plastics, including polypropylene, polyester, polycarbonate, blends of plastic, ABS, many metals, paper and paperboard are all common examples.
Sheet Material & Size
Material such as Polyester or Polycarbonate are converted to sheets from rolls and then screen printed in sheet form. Maximum sheet sizes are limited by the size of bed on the screen printing machine, and the maximum print area is determined by not only the machine but also the complexity of the print design. Permark can advise on specific requirements.
Finished Objects
Many individual objects can be screen printed, so long as they have a flat surface for the area of print, such as lenses and plastic switches, which are first placed in a jig prior to printing.
Digital Printing
Permark's digital printing capability means many substrates, including self adhesive polyester self adhesive vinyl, and synthetic materials can be digital printed and digitally cut.
Digital printing is ideal for:
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very high resolution "photographic" reproduction of images
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Printing of variable or unique information such as sequential numbers or barcodes
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Small or one off print runs and small runs of mixed labels.
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Prototyping of products - especially useful in combination with laser cutting and laminating processes to make one off's or prototype runs of graphic control panels, lenses and other items prior to going into full scale production.
Digital printer/cutter can print continuously for large banners, and is suitable for short run or even one off prints.
Digital printing is cost effective for short runs because, even though the unit cost may be higher than other methods, there are no film charges, and no tooling cost for cutting knifes ( there may however be costs for preparation of artwork files if not supplied "print ready").
Digital Cutting
A large range of clear and coloured substrates can be digitally cut for
vinyl cut lettering and graphics.
The digital cutter is able to kiss cut self adhesive stock, allowing waste to be stripped and leaving a sheet of easy to remove labels, or kiss cut tabs on labels, allowing "easy peel" of the backing paper prior to applying the digitally printed labels.
Digital printing and cutting is used to make short run resin domed labels since the printing and cutting process negates the need to make film work and tooling that are required for screen printing.
Contact Permark to see samples of digital printed labels or for a
quick quote.
