ONE PLATFORM, TWO COLOUR BUILDS
The YTE61000 prints six colours and the YTE81000 prints eight, on the same gearless platform and the same 960 mm print width. Every CI flexo printing machine on this platform shares the same running gear. A closed-chamber doctor blade, a flying splice at both ends, closed-loop tension with taper, an automatic edge guide ahead of the first unit, and PLC inspection on the running web. Both models carry a sleeve-type plate cylinder and a ceramic sleeve anilox, and both splice without stopping the press. The difference between them is not build quality. It is the register figure, the drying capacity and the tension window, and each of those has a number attached.±0.08 MM VERSUS ±0.1 MM
The eight-colour press holds ±0.08 mm of registration, the tightest figure in the range, and the six-colour press sits at ±0.1 mm. On a photographic design or fine reverse type, that 0.02 mm is the difference between a job a customer signs off and a job they return. The number matters because it has to hold while the press accelerates and slows, which is where a gear-driven press loses register and a gearless one keeps it. Once a tolerance is written into a print approval, the machine that cannot hold it is disqualified on paper rather than on the shop floor. That is why the register figure picks the press before colour count does.THE 4.5-METRE DRYING TUNNEL
The YTE81000 dries between decks with a hot-air tunnel 4.5 metres long, held to a maximum of 80 °C with air speed adjustable from 5 to 30 m/s. The length matters more than the temperature, because ink needs residence time as much as heat. The YTE61000 takes a different route with electric heating in a fully enclosed, variable-air-volume chamber. Both answers exist for the same reason. The web has to be dry enough for the next colour to sit cleanly on top, and a press that under-dries prints a smear and calls it a colour shift. The YTE81000 accepts water-based or solvent-based ink, which changes the drying demand again. Drying configuration is a design choice, not a bolt-on.THE ANILOX AND THE DOCTOR BLADE CHAMBER
The anilox is the sleeve that meters ink onto the plate, and on both presses it is ceramic rather than chrome. Ceramic wears far more slowly, so the cell volume that sets ink film thickness stays put over a working life. The doctor blade chamber feeds the anilox in a closed loop, which keeps solvent out of the air and the ink clean at speed. What the anilox does is the part of the press most buyers never open, and it decides colour density run to run. Ceramic over chrome is the reason the figure stays stable. Ink viscosity is the other half of the same equation, and it drifts with the shift if nobody owns it.THE TENSION WINDOW: 20–300 N
The YTE61000 holds web tension from 20 to 300 newtons under servo control, from 12 micron film to heavy paper, with a floating roller and encoder feedback. A floating roller is what makes that span usable. It absorbs the fast tension spikes a fixed roller would pass straight into the web. The encoder tells the servo how fast the roll is actually turning, so the control chases the measured web rather than a commanded value. The FFS, built for heavy sack film, runs a different range of 5 to 20 kg across the full width. The two figures say the same thing: tension is set to the material, and a press with a narrow window is really a press for one product.THE SPLICE THAT DOES NOT STOP THE PRESS
Both YTE presses splice on the fly, the unwind and the rewind, on rolls to φ600 mm with 3 inch, 4 inch or 6 inch cores. That is the difference between a press that keeps a shift moving and one that stops at every parent roll change. A flying splice trades a few seconds of overlap for zero downtime, and the overlap has to sit flat or the extra lap shows up as a bump through every downstream nip. On a high-colour-count job the splice is where a bad tension step turns into a register jump, so the splice and the tension window are judged together.WIDTH AND REPEAT: 960 MM AND 360–1000 MM
Both machines take material to 1000 mm and print 960 mm. The six-colour press reaches a repeat of 1000 mm, the longest in the range, which suits large pack formats and shrink-sleeve work. The eight-colour press covers 360 to 960 mm of repeat. Repeat is the distance the plate travels for one image, and it is the number that decides whether an existing job can move onto a new press without a plate redesign. Repeat and width frame the job together: a press that prints 960 mm but cannot reach a 1000 mm repeat closes the door on the largest formats whatever its colour count.SPEED IS TWO NUMBERS, NOT ONE
A press is quoted with a mechanical speed and a production speed, and they are not the same. The YTE81000 carries a 500 m/min mechanical ceiling and runs 350 to 450 m/min in production. The YTE61000 prints up to 400 m/min. The gap is the honest part of the specification. Production speed depends on the ink, the plate, the design and the substrate, and a figure quoted without those caveats is a sales number rather than an engineering one. The flexo market keeps moving because the same press earns differently at each end of that range.SUBSTRATES: PAPER UNDER 65 GSM TO PVC
The eight-colour press lists paper below 65 gsm, PE, PET, BOPP and PVC on the same machine, so a converter is not tied to one film type. The six-colour press shares the platform and the tension window that makes that possible. XIAOPAI matches the sleeve set to the film list, which is how the same register figure survives a change from PET to BOPP. When a substrate list is that wide, the register has to survive a change in modulus from one film to the next, and that is the real test of the gearless drive.THE THIRD BUILD: PRINT, EMBOSS, FOLD
For completeness, the range has a third press. The Master Series FFS prints four colours at 700 mm and runs printing, embossing and gusset folding in one pass at 150 m/min, weighing 25 tonnes on 100 kW. The folding depth runs from 0 to 100 mm and the embossing from 0.2 to 0.5 mm, which is what turns a printed film into a finished sack before it leaves the press. It is a different machine for a different job, heavy-duty sack film rather than wide general packaging, and it is chosen for the folding unit rather than the colour count.WHAT XIAOPAI SUPPLIES
Wenzhou Xiaopai Electric Power Technology Co., Ltd. works with SINSTAR, which builds the range, and supplies the press as an authorized distributor with a single technical contact. XIAOPAI keeps the interface in Wenzhou: configuration against the pack and the print approval, inspection before shipment, commissioning on site. XIAOPAI also supplies the sleeves, anilox rolls and wearing parts that hold the register figure over the life of the press. In the line the press sits between the blown film extruder and the slitting and rewinding stage, which is where print width and web tension have to agree. The published page for the CI flexo printing machine carries the figures listed above.ONE LINE FOR THE RECORD:
A CI flexo printing machine is chosen on register, drying and tension before it is chosen on colour count, and each of those has a number you can hold a supplier to.
A CI flexo printing machine is chosen on register, drying and tension before it is chosen on colour count, and each of those has a number you can hold a supplier to.
