Full-Servo Electronic Line Shaft Solution for Rotogravure Printing Machines

Rotogravure printing machines are the primary production equipment in the flexible packaging sector, widely used for printing food, personal care and pharmaceutical packaging. In the gravure printing process, ink is held in engraved cells on the printing cylinder and transferred onto film substrates to reproduce graphics and texts. Thanks to its consistent color rendering performance, this process is widely adopted across the flexible packaging industry.

During production, high-speed multi-color gravure printing faces two typical process control challenges: color registration accuracy and stable web tension control. Registration quality directly affects the yield of multi-color printing jobs. Film is a flexible substrate. Tension fluctuation tends to cause film stretching and deformation, which may lead to registration offset, blurred patterns and higher material waste.

Traditional rotogravure presses with mechanical long-shaft transmission are restricted by gear backlash, torsional deformation of drive shafts and wear of transmission components. Synchronization errors tend to accumulate during prolonged high-speed operation and acceleration/deceleration cycles. In addition, such machines feature a cumbersome job changeover process and require lengthy setup time.

MT Drive offers a full-servo electronic line shaft control solution to replace conventional mechanical long-shaft transmission, enabling independent servo drive for each printing unit. Integrated with closed-loop web tension control algorithms, the solution detects real-time web tension and dynamically adjusts servo output. It also incorporates mark detection and closed-loop registration algorithms to deliver dynamic registration compensation at high speed. Process parameters can be saved and recalled with one click.

Designed for flexible packaging OEMs and packaging manufacturers, this solution helps stabilize print quality, reduce consumption of raw and auxiliary materials, and improve equipment operational efficiency. It is suitable for multi-color flexible packaging applications including food pouches, personal care packaging bags and pharmaceutical composite films.