Equipment and method for automatic plasticizing

A method for plasticizing image sheets by means of an automatic plasticizing equipment including a first plasticizing device and an electronic control unit for the plasticizing device and wherein the first plasticizing device employs a first plasticizer film unwinding from a first film spool, wherein said method is associated to a plasticizing equipment which comprises a second plasticizing device for a second plasticizer film with different typology unwinding from a second film spool for pre-forming plasticized image sheets of different typology, said method comprising the steps:

• a) feeding the plasticizing equipment with an image strip unwinding from an image spool, wherein the image sheets are arranged in sequence along the image strip and wherein the image strip supports enhanced sheet codes (ESC), readable by machine, having dimensional information on dimensions of associated image sheets and finishing information on finishing of said associated image sheets;
• and
• b) selectively activating the first plasticizing device or the second plasticizing device, on control of the electronic unit and in response to said dimensional information and said finishing information for carrying out plasticized image sheets of different typologies of plasticization or leaving deactivated the first plasticizing device and the second plasticizing device for carrying out non-plasticized image sheets.

An automatic plasticizing equipment for image sheets comprising a plasticizing device and an electronic control unit for said plasticizing device and wherein said first plasticizing device employs a first plasticizer film unwinding from a first film spool,

• wherein said equipment processes image sheets with associated enhanced sheet codes (ESC), readable by machine, having dimensional and finishing information associated to said image sheets;
• said equipment further comprises one or more enhancement devices among another plasticizing equipment, an embossing device, a metalizing device and a browning device, activable, respectively, for plasticizing, embossing, metalizing, and browning the image sheets;
• the electronic control unit responds to the dimensional and finishing information from the enhanced sheet codes (ESC) for selectively activating the other plasticizing equipment and/or the embossing device and/or the metalizing device and/or the browning device for obtaining enhanced image sheets of different typology;
• and
• wherein said electronic control unit responds to the dimensional and finishing information from the enhanced sheet codes (ESC) for selectively activating the first plasticizing device or one or more of said enhancement devices or to leave the plasticizing devices and said enhancement devices deactivated so as to obtain plasticized image sheets of different typologies of plasticization or embossed image sheets and/or metalized image sheets and/or browned image sheets or non-plasticized image sheets.