Printing press cleaning and maintenance

In order to ensure the high quality of the printing work, the printing equipment must be cleaned, usually we call it "cleaning blanket", but it also includes cleaning of printing plates and ink rollers. Rubber blanket printing presses can easily stick to ink, dust, and coating materials on paper, so they must be cleaned. Small-scale printing companies usually use manual operations, cleaning with special cleaning cloths, disposable cleaning papers or other tools with detergents, and large enterprises usually need special equipment to replace most manual operations. Blanket cleaners usually consist of organic compounds such as aliphatic carbohydrates, aromatic hydrocarbon compounds and ethylene glycol diethyl ether. However, water-soluble detergents containing flocculants, surface activation, diamino acids, and other cleaning substances can be used for blanket cleaning, but are not as extensive as the former. The term "Type Wash" has been left over from history, mainly referring to detergents that have strong detergency and are used to remove turbulence, such as solidified ink. Of course, it can also be used as a general cleaning agent. Toluene, MEK, methylene halides and other organic solvents are its main constituents. Printing plate and ink roller cleaning In general, the dampening solution has a cleaning effect. It can directly remove debris such as dust and paper dust from the plate, without special treatment. However, sometimes we also have to clean the plate exclusively, which is usually done by manual operation, but be careful not to let the cleaning agent contaminate the fountain solution. Occasionally the ink tank and the ink roller also need to be cleaned. At this time, first of all, the ink fountain should be scraped clean as much as possible, and then the cleaning agent is added to the fountain cleaning tray to clean the entire ink roller system through the ink roller drive. Maintenance Usually the printing press needs regular maintenance. Special attention should be paid to gears, motor power systems and transmissions. In addition, the need for continued addition or replacement of lubricants should also be noted. In addition, the re-grinding, rectification or cleaning of the ink roller, and the replacement of the blanket are also another aspect of maintenance.