How to Choose an Ideal Digital Printing Equipment?

Time：2023-06-06 From：

Digital printing has been introduced into China for more than twenty years, counting from the end of the 1990s. In the segment of label printing, the early Chinese digital printing market is almost monopolized by certain internationally renowned brands. After years of exploration, inkjet digital printing technology is becoming increasingly mature, China's inkjet digital printing machines began to scale into the market, and inkjet digital printing machines gradually occupy a dominant position in the field of digital printing.

Reasons for the rise of China-made inkjet digital printing machines, one is the relatively expensive price of imported equipment, and the second is the growing cost of maintenance of imported equipment, which increases the cost of use of the customer. Especially in recent years, the epidemic, the trade blockage and other factors have caused sluggish after-sales service, poor timeliness as well as the growing maintenance costs from foreign manufacturers. In this case, imported equipment is even more discouraging to investors. With China's inkjet digital printing technology continues to improve and enhance, along with the unique after-sales service advantages of domestic equipment manufacturers as well as the cost-effective equipment and consumables, and other factors are very easy for investors to accept.

Compared with traditional printing equipment, digital inkjet printing presses dominate the industry with its characteristics of rapid production, low-volume manufacturing and variability.

Especially with the increase in demand for customized products at home and abroad, and the growth of the short and rapid orders for consumer goods demand, large-volume orders of products are declining year by year, and every investor has cried out for "zero inventory". At present, following the market demand, the big brands also launch some customized products along with China's major holidays, which makes the inkjet digital printing machines particularly prominent in the field of FMCG, personalized product printing. It can be seen that the China-made inkjet digital printing machines are bound to set off a wave of investment in the international market.

Although inkjet digital printing presses have many advantages, but what exactly are the main factors that should be focused on when investing in inkjet digital printing presses?

In fact, inkjet digital printing machine is not as simple as imagined, investment in technology and application are very key considerations. First of all, when investing in inkjet digital printing machine we should try to choose manufacturers who have been rooted in the digital printing industry for many years and have rich experience in digital printing to cooperate. Because these manufacturers have a clear knowledge of digital printing, rich experience in the use of printheads, which is related to the stability and reliability of inkjet digital printing machines used by investors in the future; Secondly, we should pay attention to R&D time of the equipment, because equipment development and product iteration are very important, and investors also need to combine their own product mix, considering whether the investment in inkjet digital printing machine can really fulfill the needs of their own products; In addition, we should pay attention to the quality of the equipment itself, including both hardware and software.

Here are some specific points should be concerned.

1. Stability of the hardware platform

Inkjet digital printing presses like flexographic and other rotary equipment, the stability of the platform is critical, involving the printhead in the print overprint stability and the accuracy of the printhead drop point. If the platform is not stable, it will cause the print color deviation and poor printing stability and other fatal defects.

So, how should investors analyze the stability of the platform?

First, the processing accuracy of the equipment, involving the processing accuracy of each paper guide roll, as well as the installation accuracy, in particular, the circular runout of the paper roll on the platform, whether or not they have reached a uniform standard, whether or not the encoder's installation accuracy can be achieved to stabilize the output.

Second, the electrical control system should be selected from the domestic brand, guaranteed high-end servo drives, motors and controllers, to facilitate after-sales maintenance. Because the electrical control system at any time it is impossible to ensure 100% trouble-free. If you choose a domestic brand, you can guarantee the timeliness of after-sales, while the foreign controllers and motors and other parts delivered long, expensive, maintenance costs in the event of anomalies is far greater than the investor's investment in equipment.

Thirdly, independent R&D and design capabilities in the control of ink supply system. When printing with large ink volume, sufficient ink supply can be ensured, so that the printhead can spray ink well and avoid problems such as ink breakage and flying ink. When problems arise, it can be quickly resolved.

Fourth, the board drive to control the printhead must have reliable stability. When carrying out a long time inkjet printing, it is essential to choose a brand of printhead driver board to ensure that the control board and printhead temperature is constant. In the process of using the equipment, electrical equipment will heat up, the need for thermostatic control system on the printhead and the use of the environment of the board for thermostatic control, because the ability to well dissipate heat on the equipment components is optimal, and open cover printing is extremely inappropriate a choice.

Fifth, the printhead is exceptionally valuable, when used on the equipment, there should be enough sensors to protect the printhead, and when equipment appears abnormal, you need to check whether there are protective measures. Among them, static electricity has a great impact on the printhead, and it is a top priority to remove the static electricity when the material is running.  Among them, static electricity has a great impact on the printhead, and it is a top priority to remove the static electricity cleanly when the material is running. Investors can check whether there is static electricity when the equipment is running, and if the static electricity can be well removed from the equipment, it can effectively improve the quality of printed materials, but also protect the printhead. If static electricity exists for a long time, it will damage the printhead. In addition, when using the equipment, there will be more or less raw material joints, joint detection sensors at this time is more critical, and can reliably detect the joints, to avoid material joints on the printhead caused by scratching and so on.

2. Advancement of software technology

After analyzing the factors that should be focused on hardware, the use of software is also extremely critical. At the beginning of the development of inkjet digital printing machine, there are many impossibilities, but after years of exploration and practice, software technology has made good progress.

Seamless printing technology, a fundamental point of inkjet digital presses, can be used to accomplish long graphic prints. Currently, only digital printers on the market can produce printed products of unlimited length. For example, printing drawings on washi materials or production jobs such as washi tapes require wireless length and seamless printing, which can be perfectly realized by inkjet digital printers.

Hole compensation technology. when using digital printers, it is inevitable that there will be individual cases of blocking holes, and in such cases, the hole compensation technology is particularly important. If the equipment has a hole compensation technology, it will give investors to save a lot of cost. The use of hole compensation technology, can be output in the product image, the plug hole place can also output a perfect image, this point is extremely critical.

Integrated Quotation System. From the point of view of customer's convenience, the quotation system function can bring more convenience to investors when using the equipment, and it is easy to calculate the cost of manufacturing products before production.

Variable data printing is also a critical function. The unit volume of variable data is very large in the labeling market, and the waiting time for RIP data, which used to be several hours, has gradually been reduced to a few minutes, making it more convenient for customers to use.

Screening technology. Dots of inkjet printing and traditional printing are different, in the application of FM and AM networks, different materials apply different dots, RIP screening is the key to digital printing machine, which can optimize the performance of the printed materials to a large extent, and avoid the emergence of a number of defects brought about by the inherent factors.

Full process management is also extremely important for inkjet digital printers. When an investor has numerous brands of digital presses in the factory and needs to maintain color consistency between different devices or when orders need to be consistent, full-process management of orders and dispatches is especially important to ensure that color chasing can be achieved on multiple different brands of devices, making it easier and faster.

Ink resistance rating is also very important for inkjet digital printers. It is important to check whether the ink resistance level of the equipment can meet the SGS environmental rating, and whether certifications such as Rohs and Voc are linked to products.

For the time being, China's domestic inkjet digital printing machines still have many products that are unable to complete. Although the lamination, cold foil, hot foil and other post-press processing technology has matured, but the connection with the traditional screen printing and other post-press processing technology still needs many ink, glue, equipment manufacturers and industry experts, end customers to cooperate. In order to achieve the ultimate in equipment technology and application, major manufacturers need to pay the cost and time to realize.