Globe News
Epic Creative retrofits UV LED in U.K.

Epic Creative Print of the UK has retrofitted UV LED lamps to its 6-colour Mitsubishi press, leveraging Flint Group’s XCURA EVO technology. “Installing UV LED broadens our opportunity to sell creativity,” said Mark Downey, Managing Partner of Epic Creative Print, based in the prehistoric market town of Dorchester in South West England.

In 2013, Epic launched its unique HiLite service to produce special effects and textures, run through its Mitsubishi Diamond 1000 press, and more recent investments, Indigo and a Scodix enhancement press.

“Our customers began asking for larger print runs of some of our most highly creative designs which we were producing on our Scodix and Indigo, but longer print runs doesn’t mean reduced unit cost in this case, so we began investigating the possibilities UV LED might offer,” said Mark Downey. “We use all kinds of substrates, from light uncoated stock, 100 percent recycled boards and specialist substrates, through to silvers like Mirri Pak, our own in-house foil papers and laminated substrates. We thought we may be able to transfer some of the longer run length work to litho with UV LED.”

Flint Group’s technology partner AMS Spectral UV now part of Baldwin Technology Co. were responsible for installing the UV LED lamp, chiller and control unit. They installed it with the option to move the LED array from the end of the press, after the coater unit, to a position after unit two, giving the flexibility to double hit with fluorescent or opaque white for example. The 6 colour with coater Mitsubishi took two days to convert to UV LED once all the rollers had been changed to UV compatible.