Eight years ago at Drupa Petratto showed a concept for digital cutting and creasing. It used a laser for die cutting, but a physical means for applying a crease. This remains a more effective means of adding a crease to carton board and enables a carton blank to run through a folder gluer at speed. It would pair with Petratto’s own Metro folder gluer.
That demonstration concept has been developed into the Eclipse, a digital creasing and cutting machine which was on show this year in Hall 11 as an all in one machine, but with a modular approach so that the creasing unit can be separated from the laser cutter.
The Eclipse can be fed from a pallet with barcode recognition to download settings. One version of the machine has separate creasing units, where the sheet is turned through 90º to pass through a second creasing unit ahead of the laser. A soft wash unit cleans any dust from the laser’s action. A second version has a single creasing unit, with a means to reverse the sheet after a first pass, then to twist the sheet and fed it through a second set of rules to complete the ceasing.
It is this unit that Petratto will offer as a stand alone creasing unit for very short runs. This unit can be connected inline to a plotting table to cut out the carton using a conventional cutting tool to leave a carton blank that can then be fed into a conventional folder gluer line because the creases have been created by mechanical means. Where cartons have been creased as well as cut out on a flatbed table, hand finishing is necessary.
The combination of Eclipse creasing and a standard cutting table will double throughput as functions have been removed from the cutting table. The creaser can run inline to the cutting table or can deliver sheets for later cutting.
The combination suits prototype and very short quantities, Petratto reckons up to 1,000 sheets. From there to 5,000 sheets, the laser cutter is more effective while above this is a B2 format flatbed platen.
Petratto is represented in the UK by IFS.
