Textiles in the Advertising Industry
Impressive colours on textiles: Exhibition stands, banners, display systems or visual protection. Textiles are versatile in shape and colour and have become one of the most widely used materials in the advertising industry. In order to obtain the perfect effect, it all depends on different components in the processing. First, the material must be suitable for the intended use. There must be a good colour brilliance and, especially for trade fair construction, the best flame-retardant properties. The second step deals with the high-quality printing and precise and economic processing.
'Our customers are always looking for ways of obtaining a precise cut of our materials. Where the cut must meet specific quality requirements of the customers, conventional processing methods reach certain limitations in part. We had our material tested at eurolaser and noticed what impressive results can be achieved by this laser cutting.' explains Lothar Vorbeck, Managing Director of Georg + Otto Friedrich Wirkwarenfabrik KG.
Since its founding in 1950 as a contract manufacturer for the foundation garment and the automobile industries, Georg and Otto Friedrich has developed to become one of Europe's leading producers of warp knitted fabrics. Today our company employs 80 staff at two production locations and at warehouses in Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Austria. Monthly production is over 450 tons of grey (unfinished) cloth – equivalent to approximately 6 million square meters of finished fabric.
Digital Printing on Textiles
We tested the material "7096FL-PTX-PES-DECOTEX", which is mainly used for banners and displays. Beforehand, the material was digitally printed so that the requirements concerning the precise cutting were particularly high. A large part of the production volume of G. + O. Friedrich now flows into the division "Digital Printing", in which, amongst others, the item presented here is utilised in large quantities.
eurolaser tested the suitability for laser cutting of the following Georg+Otto Friedrich materials:
7096FL-PTX-PES-DECOTEX
Suitability for laser cutting: suitable
6043KFL
Suitability for laser cutting: excellent suitable
7019KMFLBS
Suitability for laser cutting: excellent suitable
7019LUXX
Suitability for laser cutting: excellent suitable
7048FLBS
Suitability for laser cutting: excellent suitable
Textile printing
For the printing on polyester fabrics, only transfer printing was a viable option for a long period of time. However, the absence of image penetration during printing, in particular, prevented the use of this method in the printing of flags and banners. Thanks to INKTeX+ ® treatment of fabrics at G. + O. Friedrich, it is now possible for digital printers to print directly onto textiles. Like this, the advantages of transfer and direct printing are combined profitably and deliver a great penetration of the image, high edge definition, as well as a unique colour brilliance.The precise further processing of printed textiles is a particular challenge. To obtain realistic conditions, the laser tests were carried out directly on printed fabrics.
Optical Recognotion System
The optical recognition system allows the exact cut along the pressure contours. The CCD camera is installed directly in the processing head and plots the machining process for the work piece following the defined fiducial marks. In this way, the actual position and dimensions of the work piece can be recognised exactly. For further processing, they are automatically considered.
The test results clearly show that laser technology is perfectly suited for the processing of these textiles. In the following, we have briefly summarised the most important arguments for you:
- Precise and delicate cuts
- No material distortion thanks to stress-free material feed and contact-less cutting
- Fusion of cutting edges, prevents preparation and reworking
- Automatic material feed through Conveyor-System
- Custom-fit laser cutting of printed materials due to an optical recognitionsystem
Especially for warp knitted fabrics, the important advantages for the end users (advertising technicians, digital printers, etc.) quickly become clear:
- Simple further processing as dimensionally stable
- Very good operating performance in the printer
- The possibility of different structures / patterns
- The possibility of resilient and robust designs
Do you have any questions? We are pleased to advise you.
