Top 6 Printing Machines for Woven Bags: Flexo, Gravure and Offset

The right printing machines for woven bags depend on three things: whether you print the woven fabric on the roll, cut bags one at a time, or a film that is laminated onto the fabric afterwards; how many colours the customer's artwork needs; and how wide the bag is. This list ranks the six printing machines we build for woven bag plants, in order of printing colours, printing width, speed and how directly each one is made for PP woven fabric rather than film. Our recommendation: a plant printing branded sacks on the roll should start with the YF-ZNY6800 intelligent roll printing machine (six colours, both sides in one pass, 70 to 100 bags per minute); a plant printing letters, figures and trademarks on cut bags one at a time is better served by the S-YFY-800 series relief offset press.

Key definitions

• Roll-to-roll printing: the woven fabric is unwound from the loom roll, printed and rewound, so cutting and sewing come after printing.
• Piece-to-piece (PC to PC) printing: cut bags are fed one at a time into the press; output is counted in pieces per hour.
• Flexographic (aniline) printing: printing from a soft photosensitive resin plate, with ink metered by an anilox (cobweb) cylinder.
• Gravure printing: printing from an engraved cylinder, suited to films and used on woven bags through lamination of the printed film.
• Relief printing: printing from a raised rubber plate, here 4 mm thick, pressed against the bag.
• Colour register: the accuracy with which successive colours land on top of each other; the gravure press lists a register tolerance of ≤0.15 mm.
• Maximum printing width: the widest image the press can lay down, always less than the width of the roll or bag it accepts.

Comparison table

Rank	Model	Product page	Max colours	Max printing width	Printing length	Speed	Power	Substrate
1	YF-ZNY6800	Intelligent roll printing machine	6	700 mm	1100 mm	70–100 pcs/min	—	PP woven fabric roll, both sides
2	YF-ZNY4800	Intelligent roll printing machine	4	700 mm	1100 mm	70–100 pcs/min	—	PP woven fabric roll, both sides
3	YF-RY6800	Flexographic printing machine	6	700 mm	230–1200 mm	5–50 m/min	15 kW	PP/PE woven cloth tube, film tube, non-woven, cellophane
4	YF-RY41000	Flexographic printing machine	4	900 mm	230–1200 mm	5–50 m/min	14 kW	PP/PE woven cloth tube, film tube, non-woven, cellophane
5	YF-AY6800	Gravure printing machine	1–6	≤800 mm	≤1200 mm	5–100 m/min	80 kW	BOPP, PET, PE, PVC films, foil, paper; laminated onto woven bags
6	S-YFY-800IIB to VB	Relief offset printing machine	2–5	660 mm	1200 mm	1000–2000 pcs/h	1.5–2.2 kW	Cut plastic woven bags

Figures for the YF-ZNY models are the maximum printing size of 700 × 1100 mm on a maximum feed of 800 × 1300 mm; the catalogue lists no gross power for them. The relief offset row covers the four 800 mm-input models (2, 3, 4 and 5 colours); the wider S-YFY-1300IIIB is described in section 6. The catalogue gives no parameter table for the flexographic, gravure and relief presses, so their figures are as listed on their product pages.

1. YF-ZNY6800 intelligent roll printing machine (6 colours)

The printing machine without changing roller is the press in this list built for printing PP woven bag fabric on the roll; its colour-mark tracking is listed as suited to printing the reverse side of PP woven bags. The YF-ZNY6800 prints six colours on both sides of the roll in a single pass, with colour-mark tracking so the reverse side registers to the front, at 70 to 100 bags per minute. Maximum feed is 800 × 1300 mm and maximum printing size 700 × 1100 mm from a 4 mm plate. Bag length and image register are set on the PLC touch screen, so a change of bag length does not require a new printing roller or gear set. Electric feeding, edge position control, automatic ink distribution at start-up, automatic clutching of the impression so no defective bags are made during stops, and constant-temperature drying ovens on both sides complete the machine. It is 17,000 × 2,100 × 2,300 mm installed and carries the CE mark in our catalogue. Buy it if you print branded sacks on the roll in several colours and change artwork often.

2. YF-ZNY4800 intelligent roll printing machine (4 colours)

The four-colour YF-ZNY4800 lives on the same product page and shares every specification with the six-colour machine except colour count and length: 800 × 1300 mm maximum feed, 700 × 1100 mm maximum printing size, 4 mm plate, 70 to 100 bags per minute on both sides, and 14,000 × 2,100 × 2,300 mm installed, against 17,000 × 2,100 × 2,300 mm for the YF-ZNY6800. The same PLC control, colour-mark tracking, 360-degree electric register, inverter-controlled unwinder and rewinder and remote start and stop are standard. If your artwork needs no more than four printing colours, it prints both faces of the roll at the same 70 to 100 bags per minute; specify the six-colour model only when the design demands five or six colours.

3. YF-RY6800 flexographic printing machine (6 colours)

Our flexographic printing machine prints from a soft photosensitive resin plate and takes a wide range of substrates: PP/PE woven cloth tube, PP/PE film tube, non-woven cloth, cellophane and paper web all run on it, which makes it the choice for a plant that prints woven sacks alongside shopping, vest or garment bags. The YF-RY6800 is the six-colour model: 800 mm maximum unwinding width, 700 mm maximum printing width, 230 to 1200 mm printing length, 5 to 50 m/min, 15 kW gross power, about 4,500 kg, and 6,000 × 1,800 × 2,400 mm installed. Ink is transferred by an anilox cylinder for even colour, the meter-counter stops the press at a preset quantity, the plate rollers lift automatically with ink stirring to prevent drying, and the register plate adjusts continuously through 360 degrees. Two-colour YF-RY2800 (10 kW) and four-colour YF-RY4800 (12 kW) versions share the same widths.

4. YF-RY41000 flexographic printing machine (4 colours, 900 mm)

The YF-RY41000 is the wide version on the same flexographic press page: it unwinds a 1,000 mm roll of up to 1,200 mm diameter and prints 900 mm wide in four colours, the widest printing width of any roll-fed press in this list (the others print 700 to 800 mm). Printing length is 230 to 1200 mm, speed 5 to 50 m/min, gross power 14 kW, weight about 4,000 kg, installed size 6,000 × 2,000 × 2,400 mm. It is the press to specify when the printed image must be wider than the 700 mm of the other flexographic models. The inverter speed control, automatic drying system that shuts off when the press stops, and jog and stop buttons at the roller base and rewinding stand are the same as on the narrower models.

5. YF-AY6800 gravure printing machine (1–6 colours, film)

The gravure printing machine is ranked fifth not for lack of performance but because it prints film, not woven fabric: BOPP, OPP, CPP, PET, PE, PVC, cellophane, paper, aluminium foil and complex film. The printed film is either used directly as a packaging bag or laminated onto woven fabric to make a colour-printed woven bag, so it pairs with a lamination machine rather than replacing the presses above. The YF-AY6800 prints one to six colours, up to 800 mm wide and 1200 mm long, at 5 to 100 m/min, the highest m/min figure in this list, with register tolerance of 0.15 mm or better. Double far-infrared drying ovens, automatic tension control on winding and let-off, and single-step multi-colour printing at continuous speed are listed on the product page, which describes fast drying, quick printing, accurate colour register and vivid pictures. Gross motor power is 80 kW, installed size 9,500 × 2,200 × 2,500 mm, weight about 9,000 kg. Buy it if your colour-printed woven bags are made by laminating printed film onto the fabric.

6. S-YFY-800 series relief offset printing machine (2–5 colours, cut bags)

The relief offset printing machine (catalogue name: Printing Machine, PC to PC) prints letters, figures and trademarks on cut plastic woven bags, fed one bag at a time under photocell control with automatic counting and fine register adjustment. The four 800 mm-input models differ only in colour stations and length: S-YFY-800IIB (2 colours, 1.5 kW, 2,700 mm long, 1,500 kg), S-YFY-800IIIB (3 colours, 2.2 kW, 2,000 kg), S-YFY-800IVB (4 colours, 2.2 kW, 2,500 kg) and S-YFY-800VB (5 colours, 2.2 kW, 4,700 mm long, 3,000 kg). All print 660 mm wide and up to 1200 mm long from a 4 mm rubber relief plate on a 480 mm roller at 1000 to 2000 bags per hour. The S-YFY-1300IIIB has a maximum input width of 1300 mm, prints 1100 × 1800 mm in three colours on a 600 mm roller at 500 to 1000 bags per hour with a 4 kW motor. With the lowest motor power in this list, this is the press for a plant that prints bags one at a time after cutting.

How to choose

1. Fix the substrate first. Printing woven fabric on the roll: sections 1 to 4. Printing cut bags one at a time: section 6. Printing a film to be laminated onto the fabric: section 5 plus a lamination machine.
2. Count the colours in the customer's artwork. Two to four colours are covered by YF-ZNY4800, YF-RY41000 or S-YFY-800IVB; five or six by YF-ZNY6800, YF-RY6800, YF-AY6800 or S-YFY-800VB.
3. Check the bag width against maximum printing width. 660 mm on the S-YFY-800 series, 700 mm on YF-ZNY and YF-RY 800-class, 800 mm on the gravure press, 900 mm on YF-RY41000, 1100 mm on S-YFY-1300IIIB.
4. Match speed to the sewing line. The YF-ZNY roll presses are rated 70 to 100 bags per minute, above the 20 to 40 bags per minute of our YF-850 automatic cutting and sewing machine; the relief presses are rated per hour, 1000 to 2000 bags on the 800 mm models.
5. Decide whether both sides must be printed in one pass. Printing both sides at one time is listed only for the YF-ZNY machines, which use colour-mark tracking for the reverse side.
6. Budget the power and floor. From 1.5 kW and 2.7 m for the smallest relief press to 80 kW and 9.5 m for the gravure press; the YF-ZNY6800 needs 17 m of length.

Send your bag width, colour count and daily output through the enquiry form and we will recommend a press with the matching cutting and sewing machine. To see where printing sits in a complete plant, read our PP woven bag machine production line guide, and for the laminated route see the lamination machine guide. All four product pages are listed on the printing machine category page.