Flexible Coding and Low Maintenance Industrial Thermal Inkjet Printers

If you’re looking for a coding solution that is flexible, low maintenance and easy to integrate into your production line, look no further. Hughes Enterprises case labeling equipment options, such as those by Code Tech, provide digital thermal ink jet printers and OCV vision systems designed for high resolution printing at fast line speeds.

Thermal Inkjet Printers: How They Work

Robotics Tomorrow Trade Magazine offers some insight into how the Thermal Inkjet process works:

“In the thermal inkjet process, the print cartridges contain a series of tiny chambers, each containing a heater, all of which are constructed by photolithography. To eject a droplet from each chamber, a pulse of current is passed through the heating element causing a rapid vaporization of the ink in the chamber to form a bubble, which causes a large pressure increase, propelling a droplet of ink onto the paper.

The inks used are usually water-based and use either pigments or dyes as the colorant. These inks must have a volatile component to form the vapor bubble, otherwise droplet ejection cannot occur. The thermal heater cools and the vacant ink channels are replenished with filtered ink. This cycle can repeat up to 6,900 times per second. As no special materials are required, the print head is generally cheaper to produce than in other inkjet technologies.

Thermal printers use disposable print cartridges that contain both the ink supply and the print head. Typically, these cartridge- driven units produce excellent print quality at 300-600 dpi but the higher print quality results in slower print times.”

Flexible Coding with Thermal Inkjet Printers for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Packaging for pharmaceutical products must provide the ability to track, trace and protect the products from piracy. It must also provide important information to the consumer such as the expiration date. Flexible coding systems can be integrated into the production line to provide tailor-made solutions for almost every coding application.

An important consideration when choose a coding system is maintenance; specifically, with the exchange of worn parts. The Code Tech iJet, for example, is an “all-in-one” solution that is perfect for integrating into track and trace systems utilizing simple replacement of cartridges. It offers a fully self-contained HP print module with power and data over Ethernet and a wide variety of inks available for printing on porous and non-porous surfaces including food grade.

Key Benefits of Code Tech Thermal Inkjet Printers

Code Tech specializes in providing ink jet printing solutions to Fortune 500 companies in the pharmaceutical, tobacco and consumer goods industries that come with plenty of benefits:

• Harnesses the power of light and chemistry with UV and infrared tangents for anti-counterfeit and diversion purposes.
• Product diversion solutions provides authentication, detection and enhancement of products and materials.
• Superior anti-counterfeit solutions come with code tech special black, ultra violet or green security ink.
• No control box needed; connects directly to Ethernet/ERP server.
• Overt and covert security ink meets industry standards that has a 2D barcode with two layers of information to serve as overt carrier of data and a covert carrier of security ink.
• Readable by smart phone.
• Easy to use printer with minimal training required for set-up and operation.
• Minimal production line disruption. Low-coast cartridges are easy to replace with virtually no maintenance needed. Immediate ROI
• Clean, self-contained HP print module. No mess or cleaning needed on floors.
• Flexible enough to grow with your future requirements.
• No hazardous materials or odors. VOCs reduced from 3-5% (from 80%).

Hughes Packaging Solutions

For more information on thermal inkjet printers from Hughes Enterprises and to learn more about solutions for your shipping and packaging distribution center, please contact a Hughes Sales Representative.