Making of Printing Plates
There are two main techniques used to create a printing plate. The traditional technique requires a UV exposure unit and involves photo exposure with film positives and chemical etching of a photopolymer plate. A second technique known as "computer to plate" requires a laser engraver and involves laser etching of a specialized polymer plate. Although the latter technique is convenient for short run printing it does have several disadvantages over the former.
Laser plate making is a process that requires the use of a very soft, low quality polymer coated plate. Thus, the standard cycle life that can be expected out of a laser etched plate is quite low (10,000 impressions on the high end). By comparison, a hardened steel plate can easily last for over 1 million impressions.
Read more about this topic: Pad Printing
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