On opening the side covering of a modern printing press, what will strike your eye most is the number of rotating unions inside - mostly in brass and connected to black industrial hoses.
They are the vital links between the rotating rolls and hose line of the heating and cooling circuit. They serve the express purpose of tempering the professional ink rolls, ink units or damping system.
Both the tempering and constant temperature maintenance of these components is generally the basis for consistent print quality at top production speeds. At the same time, it is also the key for the reduction of maculation regardless of its occurrence in the trial or production phase. In other words, all modern printing plants emphasise a high degree of cost-consciousness.
Printing press manufacturers must also take the latter into full consideration. This said, and aside from the task of cooling/tempering in aqueous and non-aqueous offset printing, the additional aspects of cost reduction and resource management become a major issue.
As a result, modern professional presses are being built much more compactly and compared to earlier models are operating with broader paper widths within the same amount of space.
This all signifies that the technology behind the side covering and in the base must be minimised in spite of the enlarged paper width...
