(1) Screen printing
Screen printing, as used in *Print Gocco, is a simple printing method. The printing scheme uses a stencil (silk screen) mounted on a printing medium with a through hole that transcribes the ink. A rubber spatula (called Squeegee) is used to transcribe the ink through holes onto a printing medium located below the printing plate.
*Print Gocco: A self-contained compact color (screen) printing system for households invented in 1977 by Noboru Hayama, becoming popular in Japan.
![[Fig.1] Explanation diagram of screen printing](http://www.misumi-techcentral.com/tt/en/lca/images/168_01.gif "[Fig.1] Explanation diagram of screen printing")
(2) Characteristic of screen printing
Advantages:
| (1) | Since it uses cloth printing plate, squeegee pressure is very low. |
| (2) | Due to (1) above, printing on curved surfaces is possible. |
| (3) | Relatively thick print layers are possible... 3 dimensional texture, etc. |
| (4) | Since it is fundamentally sheet-fed, setup change is easy. |
| (5) | Adopts well to printing medium materials. |
Disadvantages:
| (6) | Inferior to other printing methods such as flexography in ink degradation (drying, etc.), and printing plate durability, etc. |
| (7) | Limited in printing accuracies. |
| (8) | Since the printing plate and printing medium come in contact, accidental ink depositing on places other than the through hole, etc. cannot be avoided. |
(3) Application examples
| ・ | Living goods...Toys, stationary, containers, clothes printing |
| ・ | Industrial goods... Printed circuits, thin film ICs, adhesive application on LCDs, scale labels |
![[Photo 1] Adhesive printing on LCD seal](http://www.misumi-techcentral.com/tt/en/lca/images/168_02.gif "[Photo 1] Adhesive printing on LCD seal")
![[Fig.1] Structure of a printing device](http://www.misumi-techcentral.com/tt/en/lca/images/167_1.gif "[Fig.1] Structure of a printing device")
