Phenix Label Company, Inc., a label converter in Olathe, KS, USA, has installed an additional UV printing press with UV LED technology from GEW to boost reliability and production speed. The company was originally founded in 1896 and today continues to be a family-owned business run by Hans M. Peter, the founder’s great-grandson. The Phenix product range includes innovative label and packaging products for the food and beverage sectors, as well as for beauty and personal products, pharmaceutical and automotive industries.

In 2016, Phenix Label installed a brand new Omet printing press with GEW UV curing: an X4 10-color flexo press with ten 16″ wide GEW-designed LW1 LED UV-curing stations, intended for self-adhesive labelstock, shrink sleeves and thin film substrates.

Todd Fatino, VP of Innovation at Phenix Label, explains: “We choose LED UV for faster run speeds, deeper curing, instant on-off, no mechanical shutters and energy savings. And yes, in every instance LED UV has lived up to our expectations!”

The decision to go with the GEW UV system was largely due to Phenix Label’s desire to ensure important investments go only into reliable high-performance technologies. “Our objective was to improve productivity at increased press speeds with the extra benefit of ease of operation and reduced downtime,” Fatino adds, “and GEW offered us a convincing package of efficiency, reliability and consistent cure.”

Phenix Label also operates an Omet iFLEX with six GEW LW1 LED stations and the company retrofitted an Aquaflex Instaflex press with eight GEW LW1 LED stations, replacing an older system. All of the printing machines at Phenix Label are now fitted with GEW UV curing systems.

With the GEW LW1 LED system, Phenix Label is able to operate full hybrid UV curing, working with both mercury arc and LED lamp technology on the same press. Mercury arc cassettes and LED cassettes both use the same lamphead casing, the same Rhino power supply and the same touch screen control. The operator simply swaps the required cassette and the Rhino power supply automatically recognizes which type of cassette is installed in the machine, switches from low voltage DC power for the LEDs to high voltage AC for the arc lamps and changes the display on the control panel accordingly.  

“The GEW UV system based on the high efficiency LW1 LED unit offers us the ability of hybrid operation combining conventional UV lamps and LED UV on the same press with a single straightforward user interface,” Fatino adds. Printing presses with GEW’s hybrid technology can be operated with mercury arc lamps and LED to fully exploit the advantages of both technologies with the same power supply and the same control panel.

He concludes: “Modernizing our plant and investing in high performance machinery ensures we stay competitive in the future. The GEW LED lampheads combined with the Rhino power supply bring us consistent curing with low migration inks, at high speeds and with no downtime.”