At Labelexpo Europe 2015, Soma Engineering will display at Stand B39 Hall 7 its mid-web Optima CI press – a new platform in flexographic printing presses for the label and package printing industry. Known as a wide web flexo press manufacturer, Soma has developed the Optima as a mid-web CI press optimized to run labelstock paper and film packaging materials, and to bridge the gap between narrow and wide web printing for products such as in-mold and wraparound labels, shrink sleeves, retort stand-up pouches and sachets, as well as paper sacks, cups and plates.
Peter Blasko, marketing manager, Soma Engineering, comments, “The Optima has been a success with our wide web customers, but we are now also identifying label printers that want to offer a wider portfolio of products such as shrink sleeves. We consider Labelexpo to be the best channel with which to share this successful press concept with the label market. The Optima can handle virtually any product in the mid web field and we will demonstrate this to anyone interested in this growing opportunity during Labelexpo.”
Available in 620 mm (24-inches) and 820 mm (32-inches) widths in up to eight colors, the Optima is capable of speeds up to 300 metres a minute (984 ft/min), and features unwind and rewind systems that are located outside the printing unit modules. This variable design allows the option of choosing any unwind and rewind configuration and in-line upstream or downstream printing and converting units such as cold seal or slitting.
An Optima equipped with eight printing units will be shown running live job demonstrations through out the show. It will feature fast web change over for reverse printing, intelligent impression adjustment to reduce start-up waste and Soma’s new, award-winning print cartridge system for spot colors, which offers printers a means of significantly reducing ink costs on printing jobs where expensive colors, special effect and metallic ink formulations are required.
