By Marco F. PicassoA new cleaning system has been developed to purify the fountain solution of the dampening system on offset and sheetfed printing presses and maintain its quality untouched for long periods of time.
easyDOT, the company which represents Timsons Ltd. on the Italian market, has recently presented a new kind of centrifuge cleaner for dampening fountains.
As Maurizio Sanzone, CEO of easyDOT explains, "there are several systems for filtering the dampening solution, but most of them use filters of a various nature, and only a few a centrifuge system. The advantage of these systems is doubling the lifespan of the dampening solution, but they have an elevated cost in terms of purchasing consumables, such as filters, cartridges, active carbon etc."
CleanUP, the new clarifier by easyDOT, eliminates the impurities which have been building up during the printing with a process of physical separation. With this technique, the clarification does not alter the chemical characteristics of the dampening solutions, as CleanUP only eliminates residues, which are not solute. A very important remark is that CleanUP does not need any consumable materials: the process is entirely mechanical and it is sufficient to wash the separator disks once a month with hot water. Maintenance and running costs are a few hundreds euros on a yearly basis. The automatic dumping of the residues allows a frequent use with no need of downtime and complicated or frequent disassemblies. The residues can then be treated as solid waste, instead of liquid, which leads to further savings.
The scope of CleanUP is the maintenance of the dampening solution within optimal standards in terms of cleaning, pH and electrical conductivity, so that, even with long runs, there will not be quality losses due to the decay of the dampening fountain. The same dampening solution can be used for up to 60 consecutive days.
easyDOT, besides distributing and installing Timsons Ltd. presses, is specialized in ordinary and extraordinary maintenance of offset machines, their installation and laser alignment, replacement of folder belts, consulting and instruction.
