Empire’s Roll-to-Roll Screen Press employs several innovative features that eliminate variability and increase efficiency, including a patent-pending registration platform, an automated chase, vacuum functions, and a completely standardized set-up system. The press utilizes a camera registration system to ensure precise color-to-color and graphic-to-cutting registration. These advancements in registration allow the material to automatically re-register itself when needed. 

With this innovation, Empire combines the outdoor durability advantages of screen printing with the efficiencies of a roll press. The industry standard for screen printing is sheet-fed equipment and most roll labels are printed on offset or flexo equipment, which cannot produce products that stand up to outdoor and challenging indoor conditions.  

Custom-built by Empire’s industrial engineers, the Roll-to-Roll Screen Press can print on a variety of first and subsurface materials including Polycarbonate, Polyester, Vinyl, BOPP, and Paper products with material thickness ranging between .005” to .03” thick. Finished products can be delivered to the customer on rolls, as sheets, kiss cut on carriers, and as individual cut decals.

The Roll-to-Roll Screen Press also exemplifies Empire’s commitment to environmental sustainability and employee safety. Empire is the first company to develop and implement UV LED ink curing technology for screen printing in its small-format Kammann K61 Eco Press, which has a max image size of 14x13.50”. The new Roll-to-Roll press brings this innovation to large format printing, with a max image area of 36.00” x 18.00”. LED curing has no emissions and is up to 600% more energy-efficient than UV Mercury bulbs. The Roll-to-Roll press is also designed with waste reduction measures as a one-of-a-kind web press that allows for starting and stopping with no web loss. 

Empire’s ingenuity, lean principles, and customer focus drove this development to deliver superior outdoor durable products for the appliance, electronics, automotive, and medical equipment manufacturers. This state-of-the-art technology modernizes screen printing with an environmental focus. Empire was able to expand its capabilities without increasing its carbon footprint, waste is minimal, and the quality reproduction of their product is enhanced with this newest manufacturing process.