New Product Announcement: Thermal Conditioner™ Device

Breaking news in the world of viscosity control!
It is exciting to announce my 8th patent, the Norcross Thermal Conditioner, filed as of May 1st. This device is the 20th patent for Norcross Corporation.

The first version of this device is the “Therminator 100™” (with the number changing as new versions are introduced). It has been under development for several years and will provide a new and innovative way for our customers to control temperature in various printing and coating applications.

Manual control is managed by using customer-supplied water flow control valves (not shown). Our device enables the user to measure thermal factors in the process. After thermal factors are determined, semi- or full-automation of the process can be provided.

We will soon be launching a new web site, www.thermalconditioner.com, to handle this product line.

In the words of the Terminator, “we’ll be back.”

Temperature Control of Inks and Coatings

Norcross will be showing a new invention at drupa 2012. This addresses, in a unique way, the challenge of adjusting the temperature of inks and coatings. This new device, whose name and photo cannot be revealed until May 3 (due to patent and trademark filing requirements), has spent several years in development and testing. On one test, a heating system was putting 43,000 joules per minute of energy into the test

system. This same device was extracting 64,000 joules per minute. The flow of the simulated ink was 2.7gpm/10 liters per minute. The cooling water was flowing at 2gpm/8 liters per minute. The simulated ink temperature was 48˚C and the cooling water 10˚C. The inking system saw a drop in temperature of 6˚C in approximately 10 minutes. There was no pressure drop in either the ink or cooling water flows. The gross volume of simulated ink was 15 gallons/60 liters.

This device mounts directly IN the ink line! It has no electric or pneumatic components and thus can be used in any location. It is standard with Stainless Steel and Delrin, but can be made with other materials. It is designed to work on the low-pressure systems found in printing and coating applications all over the world.

Norcross is so excited to be bringing this to the world at drupa 2012. It can be used as a stand-alone, manually controlled device, or tied to automated controls supplied by either Norcross or your own PLC.

Simple, sensitive, reliable, rugged, elegant, innovative – come see us at us at Hall 15 Booth A23-2 at Drupa or contact us.


“For years Norcross has had our viscosity control customers asking about temperature compensation and/or control, and for years there have been efforts by others to provide such. But this design is new, different and perfect. I am ‘psyched.’” Reports Norcross Corporation’s President – Robert Norcross, Jr.

Solvent Supply to CI Flexo Press

How to bring solvent to your ink buckets via Gravity Feed. Use something like this with a solenoid valve in each of the feed lines. Connect those valves to your control system and you've got it !!  You can also use a pumped in solvent feed, instead of gravity feed but keep the pressure low, about 1 bar.

Air Mixer Stabilization

For years there has been a trend away from centrifugal ink pumps to diaphram and/or peristalitic pumps. The problem with this trend is that it removes mixing from the main tank and thus inks, coatings and varnishes are not mixed well and viscosity control and/or product consistency falter.




Likewise some of this trend has been because of the use of water based ink and the centrifugal pumps can create foam in the ink [ this is a real no no :( ]. But without mixing your situation is still going to be bleak.



This air mixer has a 15:1 gear reducer !!! This means you can run it at slow speed and not stall out, like with a non gear reduced mixer.



This will stabilize your product. So simple yet so powerful. Check out our posting on



YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=228tGgRkAFM

Paint Tank - Viscosity Control

You see here one easy way to control a large tank of paint, base coat, varnish, ink or other liquid which is being sent on to some kind of application system. The M8B, mounted to the side of the tank, is a tank mount viscosity sensor. It can go on tanks up to 6ft / 2m deep. Turbulence, vibrations, density (specific gravity) changes and level changes do not affect the reading of viscosity.

Whether you are using a Zahn, Din, Ford, ISO or another cup we can control so close that you cannot see changes in viscosity. Except if you add a large amount of uncut paint :) Cheers !

Same Ink / Different Material - Different Color

Shown in this blog is a fabulous handout from Flint Ink. As the resolution of my post is not clear;
The question is:     "Which stocks are printed with the same ink ?"

The answer is:     "Here's the same ink on a variety of stocks."

Please note that Color Quiz is a registered trademark of  Flint Ink.
Be sure to visit:
http://www.flintgrp.com/
http://www.printindustry.com/Newsletters/Newsletter-21.aspx

gram/second-centimeter ??

What is viscosity ? It is the ratio of Shear Stress / Shear rate which when you it through you end up with grams/second-centimeter.  Now this is a mouthful and is named for Jean Louis Marie Poiseuille . If you want a worksheet that details how to follow the units of measure let me know at sales@viscosity.com or visit wikipedia.