Leather Printer

Leather Digital Printing Solution

According to relevant news, China leather output converted to standard leather piece is about 70million, and world total leather output is about 300 million cowhide pieces (standard leather piece). China leather output occupies about 23.33% in world leather output. After many years’ development, China has become a large leather country, but not strong. Leather made in China is still weak in quality, value, emboss and print. It needs to be practiced and improved in the big market environment. Among them leather surface print technology is one of the technologies that need to be improved urgently.

Leather printing in traditional meaning is mainly leather emboss. There is less print. In the market we can see many leather products and clothes, but less print product. Many surfaces are embossed. The main reason is that leather is soft, and the elasticity and stretchability, including length and breadth bond and extension are different. What’s more, the leather varies a lot, including natural (real leather), regenerated, artificial (PU/PVC) etc. For different kinds of leather, the elasticity and bond stretchability are very different. It makes leather print difficult to be solved by common printing methods. Also it can’t be solved by unified printing methods. Silk screen printing and transfer printing are two effective ways to print designs.

Recently digital printing technology develops fast. It provides possibilities of printing on leathers. Especially development in inkjet printing technology makes people see the hope and possibility of leather printing. It also lays the technology foundations of leather print. Later inkjet printing starts trials to leather print industry. Currently leather digital print methods are as follows:

First is upgrade flatbed inkjet leather print machine. It’s applied in leather printing. It uses a “versatile ink”. The leather surface is coated with ink absorption layer. Then we can use flatbed inkjet printer print designs on leather surface. The deficiency is that the leather surface needs to be coated with ink absorption layer. Also the print technology requires flat leather print, no constant rolling leather print. So the work efficiency is low. “Versatile ink” lightproof is bad. It makes quick color fading. And the wide format print equipment is expensive etc.

For second leather digital print method, the hardware uses wide format inkjet printer, and the ink uses weak solvent ink. The deficiency of this method is the weak solvent ink uses ester and ketong solvent liquid, some uses benzene. It’s not environment friendly. The principle of this method is the ink solvent erodes the leather surface. It makes the ink “catches” leather surface, then the ink and leather surface are connected. This print method only solves some leather printing. Many or major leather surface can’t be eroded by the solvent. So they can’t be printed. Consider the ink is not environment friendly, this leather print method is not ideal.

Third is to choose wide format inkjet printer as hardware. Ink uses UV light drying ink. When the ink is printed on leather surface, it is fixed immediately by UV light drying light installed on the print head, then the ink is connected on the leather surface, and the design is printed. Because the UV ink uses resin that is UV light drying, this resin is not elastic. But for different leather surface, the softness and elasticity are different. When stretched, the surface ink may be cracking. Consider the print equipment is expensive; it’s not an ideal equipment for leather print.

Jinan Juli company did many experiments in recent years in leather print. By analyzing the deficiency, it put forward a technology in leather print. After many years it has succeeded.

This plan solves the technology problem of direct printing on leather (include natural, real, regenerated, artificial PU/PVC leather etc.), using micro piezoelectricity wide format inkjet digital printer. By using wide format inkjet printer with micro piezoelectricity print head, and some upgrade to hardware, matched with our own developed environmental friendly solvent pigment resin inkjet ink (pass SGS authentication), and special color management print software , we form our leather digital printing plan today. The crucial technology of this plan is that we’ve developed digital ink that can print on all kinds of leather. 5 conditions are possessed to develop this practical leather digital printing plan:

First, digital print ink has characteristics of waterproof, anti-scratch, sunlight proof and environmental friendly;

Second, the digital print ink has wide adaptability in leather printing (over 90% of leather can be directly printed);

Third, the print ink can conform to high print speed of print equipment;

Fourth, print ink is color steady, has wide color gamut and the ink density is qualified.

Fifth, digital print won’t shorten the life of equipment by using the ink.

The detailed parameters of this plan are below:

1. Print format: 1600mm, 1800mm

2. Print speed: 15 m2/h—30 m2/h.

3. Print quality: 4 or 8 colors print. The quality is equal to common offset color print. Color saturation is high, color gamut is wide, and color transition is natural and soft.

4. Advantages of digital print ink: waterproof, anti-scratch, sunlight proof, no taste, no smell, environmental friendly (pass SGS authentication).

5. Digital print system: low equipment investment, convenient operation and maintenance, less operation staff, small occupied area, low motive cost, high print speed.