| CPC B41F 5/24 (2013.01) [B41F 31/06 (2013.01); B41F 31/20 (2013.01)] | 10 Claims |
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1. An inking system for use in transferring a plurality of different inks to a flexographic printing plate in a flexographic printing system, comprising:
an anilox roller with a cylindrical outer surface having a plurality of cells, the cells being indentations in the outer surface of the anilox roller configured to transfer ink to the flexographic printing plate;
a fountain roller having a plurality of ink transfer zones separated by recessed zones, wherein the radius of the fountain roller in the recessed zones is smaller than the radius of the fountain roller in the ink transfer zones; and
a segmented ink tray having a plurality of ink tray segments corresponding to each of the ink transfer zones of the fountain roller;
wherein the fountain roller is positioned such that the ink transfer zones contact the cylindrical outer surface of the anilox roller; and
wherein each ink transfer zone of the fountain roller is adapted to receive ink from the corresponding ink tray segment and transfer the received ink to a corresponding zone of the anilox roller,
wherein the segmented ink tray includes one or more ink tray inserts that are inserted into a conventional ink tray, the one or more ink tray inserts having side walls that extend into the recessed zones of the fountain roller and a bottom surface having an outer profile that substantially conforms to an inner profile of a bottom surface of the conventional ink tray, wherein each of the one or more ink tray inserts supplies ink to a corresponding ink transfer zone of the fountain roller.
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