Rotogravure

With its engraving speed reaching 24 kHz, HelioKlischograph K500 is not only the most successful engraving machine of all time, but also the fastest. The pioneer K500 has been setting new standards in its category since its inception.

The high-performing, 12-kHz HelioSprint III engraving system, the multi-head Twain engraving, and the procession on liner drive rollers all guarantee a much faster cylinder production than industry standards. Equipped with all the latest HD Gravure updates, the K500 machine provides very high-quality engraving results.

The HelioKlischograph K5, in its 3 setups: "Entry Level" , "Smart", and "Auto", is a versatile machine used for a wide range of cylinder engraving implementations and satisfies virtually any necessity of the rotogravure industry.
The complete software and hardware equipment guarantees fast and high-quality engraving results, thanks to the use of the HD Gravure system.

The K5 Smart setup may be implemented by integrating it in completely automated lines, thus switching from semi-automatic engraving machine to K5 Auto. The K5 "Smart” and “Auto" models are able to engrave with top-quality HD Gravure, and can count on HelioSprint 2, CellEye, SprintEasy, and Certified Engraving as their standard equipment.

Cellaxy, a direct-laser engraving machine, allows users to obtain the highest-quality level for rotogravure printing. Cellaxy also satisfies the highest quality prerequisites for implementations such as embossment and glue- or paint-coating.

The Cellaxy laser universal design allows to make range and focus adjustments based on smart algorithms, without needing to make any mechanical adjustments. This guarantees that its laser, of elevated strength and quality, can be used optimally in any of its possible applications.

Cellaxy has an exclusive feature: the possibility of using two 600-W optical-fiber lasers, which make it the most productive direct laser in the print industry at the moment.

Thanks to its design, Cellaxy may be equipped with any type of future lasers, classes such as high-performance nano and pico, therefore it is ready for future developments. Necessary tests are ongoing so that Cellaxy may engrave with these new lasers; also K.Walter GmbH & Co. KG’s HelioPearl monolayer, engravable only through direct laser.

HD Gravure is the combination of both a tried-and-tested electromechanical engraving technology and smart algorithms. HD Gravure improves outline definition and the reproduction of finer details. Furthermore, the reduced engraving tolerance simplifies color correspondence in-print and improves reproducibility.

Certified Engraving increases process reliability in the production of rotogravure cylinders. It also reduces the need of test prints and, therefore, cylinder production costs. HD Gravure thus allows for new developments and improvements in the packaging prints, not only for thinner texts but also for shorter-range print starts, also using the new, seven-color type of print and providing an alternative to test prints.

Certified Engraving offers an automatic quality check, which makes the cylinder production process safer and decreases the need of test prints. The certified engraving system documents engravings as far as test cuts, engraving control, and the geometry of tools and grayscale cells are concerned.
The engraving cylinder is accurately checked and gauged axially and in circumference, verifying concentricity and possible shifts from the cylinder itself. Furthermore, with the aid of the camera, it is possible to acquire images from chosen positions on the engraved cylinder to detect and document cells and complete text characters.

All values and camera images, as well as protocols from the upstream phases of the process, are recorded in the cylinder certificate.
The first page of the certificate summarizes detailed results and allows a quick and simple inspection, whereas, for a higher-quality control of cylinder production, Certified Engraving transfers all the information to the CYON greater storage database from K.Walter.

HELL provides Cellaxy customers with a series of standard, tried-and-tested, Helio-compatible screens and angles. Based on this, it is immediately possible to reproduce text or halftone cylinders, which can be easily combined with electromechanically engraved cylinders. The optional CellCreator allows to either modify default nets or develop new ones.
This includes a diverse geometry of both cells (e.g. hexagon- or diamond-shaped) and screens, which may be modified in depth and/or size.

The possibility to assign a description to each separate cell for each density value is unique! This is the way CellCreator allows users to specifically adapt rotogravure shapes to individual customer needs and to fully exploit the potential of direct-laser engraving. The end result is photographic-quality halftones and perfect text lines with a resolution up to 5 µm. There is no comparable instrument on the market!

Electroplating tanks for the copper plating, alkaline copper plating, nickel plating, chrome plating, degreasing, and dechroming of different sizes of each cylinder type and dimension in the various fields of use: packaging, decorative, and publishing.
They may be embedded in fully automatic, semi-automatic or manual lines.

Ideal post-treatment tank for copper cylinder reactivation and cleaning after direct-laser engraving with Cellaxy and Digilas.

Tank for the manual stripping of rotogravure cylinder layers and the cleaning of cylinders engraved directly by laser, before the Laser Finishing Machine treatment process.

Innovative system for copper deposit. The copper dissolution and mixing  happen outside and separately to the SlimLine, EconoLine, and Pilot copper-plating tanks.

HelioChrome® NEO is a highly complemented, all-in-one solution for the ecological chrome plating of rotogravure cylinders made of trivalent chrome (III).
Using HelioChrome® NEO with the SlimLine NEO tank and Minipilot NEO polisher guarantees both sustainability from an environmental standpoint and safety for workers, who benefit from a completely integrated process control and an improvement of overall quality and maintenance simplicity.

The Central Chemical Unit concentrates all the chemical components used in the electroplating line in a single, protected place, and constantly supplies cylinder production line in automatic and surveilled manner.

Therefore, it allows to easily comply with the increasing number of safety procedures and to increase workflow efficiency.

Q-Trac is a machine equipped with a smart system for rotogravure cylinder quality and surface inspection and verification. It is easily embeddable on fully automatic lines and it is a module of control and management SW production CYON.

AUTOCON is Heliograph Holding Group’s solution for the integration and automation of different machines designed for a high-precision, economical, and efficient print cylinder production.

AUTOCON is extremely flexible, integrates electroplating, process, and engraving machines, and allows customers to expand their own production capacity in a simple continuous manner.

CYON is a software platform based on collected data in order to optimize rotogravure cylinder production. It digitizes all of the cylinder production and provides a clear overview of all processes inside cylinder production electroplating lines in real time. CYON improves planning abilities, simplifies sequences, and supports a complete and constant monitoring of the entire production operation.

CYON is available on license and is a modular solution. The single modules may be combined to satisfy specific customer needs. CYON Chemistry Individual checks every necessary parameter to the correct functioning of electroplating units: from individual analysis to product consumption, etc. This module is independent and can be provided and used individually as well.

CYON can be perfectly integrated into K. Walter’s existing Autocon process automation systems. Thanks to its network connection, collected data, real-time process visualization, and K. Walter’s complete know-how, it takes production to a whole new, controlled, and efficient level directly connected to the company management software.

The CFM machine, in its different models, turns out to be the perfect combination of both accuracy and performance for the precision processing of rotogravure cylinders.
From the Econo version to the more sophisticated P “Performance Package”, used individually or line-integrated, they all guarantee unique quality and finishing levels for rotogravure cylinders, thus providing very reliable production.

Modular polishers, they are reliable, efficient, and accurate for rotogravure cylinder surface treatment, completely automatic and also embeddable in all of Kaspar Walter’s automatic lines.