Yes, we skipped exhibiting at Converters Expo last year, but we are back. After the hiatus in trade show attendance, it’s good to see Converters face to face. Better yet, we enjoy helping Converters solve problems that might seem unsolvable. 

This year we are sending two of our experts to work with you in solving your problem in web guiding and monitoring. Whether it’s an issue with edge, center or line guiding in a specialty area, or a difficult monitoring application, we have developed the technology to solve many problems in the industry.

Another Option in Contrast Guiding when there is no Feature that could Mimic a Line.

In a previous post on contrast guiding we discussed using the negative space between straight edged labels as an intermittent linethat can be tracked by our sensor/camera and control system for web guiding applications. However, our system allows for other ways of using a contrast application that do not require a negative space that has characteristics of a line for the purpose of tracking.

A Very Special Option for Contrast Guiding and Monitoring

Contrast sensing allows for a variety of applications to guide or monitor your web. These applications help you eliminate the need for a printed line. Eliminating the printed line saves the cost of ink to print the line and the web material where the line would be printed. 

A contrast is any visible printed, embossed or laminated feature on a web. Most of the time, a visible feature is understood to be visible with the naked eye. However, it can include UV printed features that are not visible to the naked eye, but are detectable for a UV type of sensor or camera.

In negative space web guiding dealing with the consistency of the negative space is the same as if we were dealing with the consistency of a printed line for line guiding. 

The line has to be of the same width and color in order for the sensor to track it. Any variation and the sensor will not recognize it. The same thing happens when using the negative space as guiding feature.

Line guiding is one of the subsets of contrast sensing applications.

It requires the printing of a line on a web. It's purpose is to provide a feature that a sensor can track to determine the web position. The typical use is in web converting where guiding on the edge might not be a precise parameter in printing labels. However, printing a line is an additional cost. After all, it is additional ink. If the line is printed outside of the main printed features of the web, it could be leaving money in the converting floor in the form of excess trim on the edges of the web.