Most printers using flexo printing technology fail to maximise their machines’ capabilities. To maximise the efficiency of their printer, one must use the right technology and the right consumables and optimise their print process. Flexographic printing has many potential problems, so optimizing the process means keeping an eye on them.

Flexography may appear simple at first glance, but every flexographer has to cope with many difficulties, resulting in unnecessary loss of production time and waste. Lets look as some common flexo printing problems and it solutions.

Common problems in flexo printing

There are typically 22 common defects in flexo printing. You can see them on the checklist as follows:

  1. Blocking
  2. Bridging
  3. Color strength too high
  4. Color strength too low
  5. Deformed screen dot
  6. Dot gain too high
  7. Ghosting effect
  8. Halo effect/squeezed edge on the screen dot
  9. Inaccurate printing of the screen dots
  10. Ink build-up on motif edges
  11. Ink mottling
  12. Large-area printing defects
  13. Longitudinal stripes
  14. Mechanical damage to the printed image
  15. Minor printing defects
  16. Moiré effect
  17. Pinholes
  18. Register
  19. Repeat length
  20. Tape resistance
  21. Transverse stripes
  22. Bleeding – smudging

Solutions

Due to various reasons and factors, errors during printing can occur during working time, so it is important to minimize these errors to remain productive. Work methods, the work environment, and print conditions are the most important factors to avoid these issues.

Good results take time, and operators need the training to improve their skills. Your operator must be well-trained to control and manage the above-stated issues efficiently to ensure your future success and competitiveness!

These were some of the common flexo printing problems. Some of these problems can be daunting for printers. To help you with it, we are soon adding a series of blogs for each problem with its solution in detail.

You can read the first article in the series here: Problem of blocking in flexo printing