Q. Will the gap on the FlexBind^® sheet cause a blanket impression?  How do I prevent this and not increase my consumables?

A. Yes FlexBind^® products will create an impression of the blanket over time.  The affect is temporary and can easily be corrected with the simple recommendations below.

Blanket impressions will be created by the FlexBind^® hinge.  This is a normal and temporary printing condition.  There are several ways that a printer can work FlexBind^® into their normal production flow to minimize the effects of blanket impressions.  Running FlexBind^® sheets should not shorten the lifespan of the Indigo blanket.  There are many options for workflow modifications, three are listed below.

1. Work FlexBind^® orders between standard paper orders which will remove any impression memory from the blanket
2. Print 2 cleaner sheets after every few FlexBind^® orders
3. Gang all the FlexBind^® orders for the end of a blanket life and print them consecutively.  Then discard the blanket.

The Indigo is set up to run cleaner sheets at regular intervals.  As long as the gap deletions are not severe, the default setting of 400 impressions is acceptable for removing residual ink and most of the gap impression from the blanket.  To increase the frequency of cleaner sheets between jobs, select the “Consumables” header and select “Blanket” followed by the “Cleaner Page” tab.  Under “Frequency”  change the value to reflect the number of impressions between cleaner sheets.  Remember, each color is counted as an impression, so for 4-color printing on FlexBind^®, 400 impressions is 100 sides or 50 sheets.