What are Die Cutters?

Die-cutting machine is mainly used for the corresponding non-metallic materials, self-adhesive, EVA, double-sided tape, electronics, mobile phone protective film, etc. Die-cutting, indentation and hot stamping operations, through the press plate to apply a certain pressure, the printing or cardboard rolling cut into a certain shape. How does the die cutter work? What is the working principle of die cutting machine?

Working principle of die cutting machine

The working principle of die cutting machine is to use a steel knife, metal mold, steel wire (or steel plate carved into the template), through the press plate to apply a certain pressure, the printing or cardboard rolling cut into a certain shape. If the entire printing product is pressed into a single graphic product is called die cutting, if the use of steel wire on the printing marks or leave curved grooves called indentation, if the use of two templates, by heating the mold to a certain temperature, hot printing on the surface of the printing with three-dimensional effect of the pattern or font is called stamping, if the use of one substrate on another substrate is called bonding, Excluding the remaining parts in addition to the genuine products is called waste, and the above can be collectively referred to as die-cutting technology. 

Die cutting and indentation technology

With the development of society and the improvement of people's living standards, consumers in the purchase of goods, in addition to the internal quality of goods, the packaging of goods also put forward higher requirements, which includes the design of the packaging full of goods, but also includes the requirements of packaging post-printing processing quality. Die-cutting indentation is an important production process for post-press processing suitable for all kinds of print surface finishing processing, die-cutting quality directly affects the market image of the entire product, so only master the traditional die-cutting indentation technology and research and development of new die-cutting technology, in order to effectively enhance the competitiveness of printing enterprises.

Die-cutting indentation technology is a comprehensive term of two processing technologies according to the model indentation and stamping according to the template. The principle is that in the mold, the pressure is applied to make the printing carrier paper compressive deformation or fracture separation. The main parts of die cutting and indentation equipment (referred to as die cutting machine) are die cutting plate and press cutting mechanism. The processed sheet material is in between the two, and the finishing technology of die cutting is completed under the action of pressure. Die cutting indentation plate has different types and corresponding cutting mechanism, so that the die cutting machine is divided into three basic types: flat pressing, circular pressing and circular pressing. The flat die cutting machine can be divided into vertical and horizontal because of the different direction and position of the plate and the plate.

Flat die cutting machine

The plate and the press cutting mechanism of this die-cutting machine are flat shaped, and when the plane of the plate and the plate is in a vertical position, it is a vertical flat-pressing die-cutting machine. When the die cutting machine is working, the pressure plate is pressed to the plate by the transmission press. According to the different movement trajectory of the plate can be divided into two categories: one is that the plate swings around the fixed chain, so at the beginning of the die pressing moment, there is a certain Angle between the working surface of the plate and the template surface, so that the die cutting plate cuts into the lower part of the cardboard earlier, which is easy to cause the phenomenon that the lower part of the die plate is too heavy and the upper part is not completely cut through. In addition, the force of the die cutting pressure will also cause the transverse displacement of the cardboard. When the die cutting machine is working, the press plate is driven by the connecting rod, first with the cylindrical roller as the fulcrum, and then swing on the flat guide rail of the machine base. When the working face of the press plate is transferred from the tilt to the position parallel to the die cutting plate, then parallel press to the die cutting plate in the way of translation.

The vertical flat pressing machine has the advantages of simple structure, convenient maintenance, easy to master its operation and replace the die cutting indentation plate, but the labor intensity is large, the production efficiency is low, and the number of work per minute is mostly 20-30 times, which is often used for small batch production.

The platen and platen working surface of the horizontal die-cutting machine are horizontal, and the lower platen is driven by the mechanism to press upward to the platen for die-cutting indentation. Because of the small stroke of the horizontal die-cutting machine, it is more difficult to manually put or take out the cardboard, so it is usually with automatic paper feeding system, its overall structure is similar to the sheet-fed offset press, the machine is composed of automatic cardboard input system, die-cutting part, cardboard output part and electrical control, mechanical transmission and other parts, and some also have automatic cleaning device.

Horizontal die cutting machine is safe and reliable, its degree of automation and production efficiency are relatively high, is the advanced model of die cutting machine.

Circular flatting die cutting machine

The die cutter is mainly composed of a reciprocating flat plate and a rotating cylindrical pressure drum. In the working stroke, the plate moves forward, die-cutting and indentation of the cardboard, and the plate returns back when the stroke is returned, and the working face of the pressure roller is not in contact with the die-cutting plate. This type of die machine according to the pressure roller in a working cycle of different rotation, can be divided into stop rotation, rotation, two rotation, etc., positive and negative xuan circular die cutting machine is a simple type, its positive and negative stroke can be the working stroke.

Circular die cutting machine/rotary die cutting machine

The working part of the plate and the press cutting mechanism of the circular die cutting machine are cylinder-shaped, and when working, the paper feed silver will send the cardboard to the mold plate cylinder and the pressure cylinder between the two will clamp the drum for die cutting, the die cutting plate cylinder rotates one week, which is a working cycle.

The die cutting method of circular die cutting machine is generally divided into two kinds: cutting method and soft cutting method. The hard cutting method refers to the hard contact between the knife and the surface of the pressure roller when the die cutting, so the die cutting knife is easier to wear. Soft cutting method is to cover the surface of the pressure roller with a layer of engineering plastic, die-cutting, the cutter can have a certain amount of cutting, so that it can protect the cutter and ensure that it is completely cut off, but the plastic layer needs to be replaced regularly.

Due to the continuous rotation of the cylinder when the rotary die cutting machine works, its production efficiency is the highest in all kinds of die cutting machines. However, the die cutting plate to bend into a curved surface, plate making is more troublesome, the cost is relatively high, and there is a certain difficulty in technology. Therefore, the circular die-cutting machine is often used for mass production at present, most of the advanced die-cutting equipment to the direction of printing, die-cutting combination automatic development, the die-cutting machinery and printing machinery this production line is composed of four main parts, that is, the feeding part of the printing part, the die-cutting part, the sending part.

The feeding part intermittently inputs the cardboard to the printing part, which can be adjusted conveniently and accurately according to different material forms, sizes, types, etc. The printing part can be composed of 4-8 color printing units, and different methods such as intaglio, offset and flexographic can be used. This part has more advanced printing functions and is equipped with its own automatic drying system. The die cutting part can be a flat die cutting machine, or a circular die cutting machine, and it is equipped with a waste cleaning device, which can automatically exclude the corner waste generated after the die cutting. The conveying part is to collect and organize the products after the completion of the die cutting process, so as to ensure that the printing part of the feed part and the die cutting part can successfully achieve high-speed continuous operation.

With the improvement of the technical level in recent years, the price of circular die-cutting equipment has been significantly reduced, and it has a wide range of users in China.

Web die cutter

Web die cutting machine has round press round and flat type. Flat press web die cutting machine is a machine for die cutting and indentation by web feed paper, wired and online in two ways. Off-line processing is to use the printing press to print the web board, and then the web paper wrapped on the roll machine to the die cutting machine feed frame for die cutting and indentation processing. The off-line processing method is characterized by no connection between the printing press and the die cutting and indentation machine, and each other is not restricted. Printing machine adjustment printing can be multiple die cutting machine with the printing machine, or increase the die cutting and indentation machine boot time.

The in-line processing method is that the die-cutting machine is connected with the printing press to form an intermodal machine, and the production is carried out with a printing and die-cutting indentation process from the reel board. In this way, the speed of the die cutting and indentation machine is low, the speed of the two cannot match, and the speed of the printing press can only be reduced to reduce the operator, but the general speed of the printing press is higher, and it is impossible to improve the speed of the die cutting and indentation machine, so that the production efficiency is affected.

Joint die-cutting machine

The so-called joint die-cutting mainly refers to joint flat knife cutting and joint circular knife cutting. The kiss-cutting machine has the advantages that the single-sheet die-cutting machine cannot match. Some experts predict that it will become the mainstream of the die-cutting equipment market in the next few years. Die-cutting is characterized by high speed and high accuracy, which can greatly improve production efficiency, shorten production cycle and reduce production costs.

The maximum speed of joint flat die-cutting can reach more than 20,000 times per hour, which is much higher than that of single sheet die-cutting. Because the die-cutting plate used is the same as the flat-pressing die-cutting used for single paper, the manufacturing process is simple and the cost is low, and it is currently widely used in the post-press processing of medium and long version packaging products, and the market prospect is generally promising. Joint circular pressing is mainly used in the post-press connection of single variety and large quantity. Its main feature is to carry out a series of operations on the printed web board, such as hot stamping, stamping, die-cutting and waste cleaning, so as to process the printed sheet into the final product at one time. Joint circular die cutting avoids a series of quality problems caused by multi-pass post-press processing, such as surface fouling, inaccurate hot stamping positioning and high scrap rate, while reducing equipment investment and floor space, saving a lot of operators and shortening the production cycle.

Considering joint rotary die cutting has some advantages that joint flat die cutting does not have, due to the high cost of circular die cutting tools and the complexity of die cutting plate manufacturing, its promotion and application in China are greatly limited.

At present, joint rotary die cutting is only more and more used in foreign countries.