Flexographic printing system with solvent replenishment

A flexographic printing system including a print module comprising:

• a plate cylinder on which is mounted a flexographic printing plate having raised features defining a pattern to be printed on a substrate;
• an impression cylinder that is configured to force the substrate into contact with the flexographic printing plate;
• an ink reservoir containing an ink and including one or more ink recirculation ports;
• an anilox roller having a patterned surface for transferring a controlled amount of the ink from the ink reservoir to the flexographic printing plate;
• an ink recirculation system including:
• an ink recirculation line that is connected to the ink recirculation ports of the ink reservoir;
• a recirculation pump for moving ink through the ink recirculation line;
• a solvent replenishment chamber containing solvent;
• a metering pump for pumping a controlled flow rate of solvent from the solvent replenishment chamber into the ink recirculation line;
• a mixing device for mixing the solvent and the ink thereby providing replenished ink;
• a distribution tube for supplying the replenished ink to the ink reservoir, wherein the distribution tube includes a plurality of supply ports for supplying the replenished ink to the ink reservoir at a plurality of spaced apart locations across a width of the ink reservoir;
• a control system for controlling the flow rate of solvent provided by metering pump;
• and
• an imaging system for capturing an image of the pattern printed on the substrate, the printed pattern including one or more features, wherein the captured image is analyzed to determine a feature characteristic of the one or more features, and wherein the control system controls the flow rate of the solvent provided by the metering pump responsive to the determined feature characteristic, wherein the feature characteristic is a line width.