All new CobaltONE

For over a decade, Inkcups has continued to raise the bar for lasers in the plate-making industry. Inkcups takes pride in developing the laser plate-making process and continuing to enhance the experience for their customers. Inkcups is the pioneer of laser plate etching machines.

Be it a CO2, YAG or Fiber laser, Inkcups’ solutions appeal to the pad printing market as a whole. From the Cobalt 250 to the Cobalt 3000, each laser released has continued to push the laser plate-making industry forward by introducing new technology.

Inkcups has developed a number of lasers; each containing feature improvements over the last. Following this mindset, the company has decided to create the CobaltONE. This new and improved laser plate etching machine incorporates everything learned over the years into ONE, groundbreaking machine. The Cobalt ONE utilizes the latest in fiber laser technology, offering the smallest dot size resulting in the finest images. Etch Inkcups’ patented Cobalt Laser Plates, get more impressions, better doctoring, and a finer etch compared to other plate materials. Additionally, as always, the CobaltONE uses direct computer to plate etching. You now have the ability to print quickly, consistently, and affordably. By using the fully integrated computer system, the user can change-over artwork with the simple click of a button.

The CobaltONE also has a smaller footprint allowing the user to more easily integrate it into any work space. Eliminate the use of multiple components and just use ONE machine; ONE machine that will bring your laser plate etching to the next level; ONE machine that will save you space, time, and money. ONE machine, known as the CobaltONE.

For more information, visit: http://www.inkcups.com/equipment/laser-engravers-and-plate-makers/laser-plate-etching-machine/Default.aspx

All new PN Series by Inkcups

The PN Ink Series by Inkcups is a direct replacement of the DP Series Ink, offering more benefits in terms of color, quality, and adhesion. The PN Series ink is specially designed to be a high-gloss, fast-curing, and strong-adhering ink. Available as a one- or two-component (can be mixed with hardener) ink, PN offers higher quality prints and a wider variety of substrate adhesion than its counterpart, the DP Series. Print on treated and untreated polypropylene, treated polyester, metal, lacquered surfaces, and polyurethane with ease.

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Inkcups Pad Printing Spare Parts Kit.

Although Inkcups pad printing machines are made to last, there always comes a risk with technology. For any part that needs to be changed on a pad printer, more likely than not, you will need to order the part thus losing valuable production time. To combat this issue, Inkcups decided to create spare part kits that are available for immediate purchase. This month, we are highlighting our pad printing spare parts kit. This kit comes with essential pieces needed to quickly get your production back up and running. Purchasing this kit will yield a 23% cost savings! No brainer, right?

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Inkcups reveals new branding.

Inkcups is the world’s leading provider of innovative printing equipment, supplies, and solutions to customers in the promotional, apparel, and industrial markets worldwide. Founded in 2001 by CEO Ben Adner, Inkcups has proven itself in the industry; not only as a company who provides groundbreaking products, but also as a company who works with their customers by guiding, teaching, and ensuring a solution is found to meet their goals.

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Rotary inkjet printer for straight walled and tapered cylinders.

We’ve done it again..

We’ve optimized our latest direct-to-object technology, the Helix, to give our customers even more flexibility! Introducing Mirror UV inkjet Printing and Contour UV Inkjet Printing by the Helix.

Mirror Print- Print your graphic on any transparent substrate (such as glass) and see it from every angle! Our mirror print allows you to promote your company on the outside of the glass as well as on the inside.

Contour Print- Want to give your graphic some texture? Our Contour print can give your tumbler or pint glass a 3D effect. Choose which parts you want to jump out and the Helix will apply more ink to those areas. The end result is a one-of-a-kind print.

Introducing the next evolution of the rotary inkjet printer. The Helix is designed to print superior quality single or multicolored images for straight-walled and tapered cylinders – ideal for the drink-ware, cosmetic and industrial industries. Printing on bottles couldn’t be any easier! The Helix minimizes part setup time with a single, advanced quick-change tooling fixture designed for both cylinder or tapered parts.

Prepress and screen making are eliminated by this all-digital process. Simply import the image, choose the quantity for production and print directly to the product with user- friendly software. The Helix rotary inkjet printer achieves a superior balance between speed and image quality due to its patented Helix software which places 7 picoliter drops of ink precisely along the cylinder at extremely high speed. The Helix is a heavy-duty state-of-the-art machine designed and built by the Inkcups Now team in the U.S.A.

Tagless apparel pad printed by Inkcups

Say goodbye to your typical tear-away tags, label-free printing is here to stay! You may have seen popular t-shirt companies switch from a white sewn-in label to a print directly on your shirt. While many have sighed with instant relief, others have questioned the whereabouts of this tag that they intended to rip off anyway. The answer: companies have gone tagless.

There are numerous benefits of switching to Tagless; starting from the obvious increase in comfort for the consumer to ensuring your branding stays on the shirt and is not cutoff or destroyed. Once you have decided to “go tagless” there are a few methods to choose from: pad printing, heat transfer and screen printing. For this post, we will discuss pad printing.

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In pad printing, one of the key pieces of equipment to make an impression is the plate (also known as a Cliché). The plate holds the etch which then gets flooded with ink and eventually pressed onto the substrate with a pad. To etch a plate, you will either need to purchase a laser, exposure unit or outsource the platemaking where the same processes will be used. Each technique works differently and will depend on the type of etch you’d like to achieve

• Exposure Units-
  • Exposure units utilize UV light, photosensitive plates, film positives and other chemicals to engrave plates. This process has a number of consumables and takes longer to produce a plate than computer to print methods.
• CO2 Laser-
  • These lasers utilize a dot pattern perfect for larger logos and images. Polymer plates are used in this type of printing as CO2 lasers are not easily absorbed by metal. C02 lasers are much more flexible and allow you to choose from a number of plate materials. Additionally, they require very little maintenance.
• YAG Laser (Ytterbium or YAG fiber laser)-
  • A laser that has a wavelength that is 10 times smaller than the CO2 wavelength resulting in a smaller dot size. YAG lasers provide the highest detailed graphics by using a hatch pattern vs a dot pattern. This type of laser is primarily used in tagless applications where small lettering is required. Conversely, they are easily absorbed by metals but not easily absorbed by other materials.

Each method has its own pros and cons but the computer to plate techniques require the least amount of consumables and upkeep.

The XJET800 is the all new UV/LED industrial inkjet printer from Inkcups Now designed for high volume production demand. Featuring the latest in print head technology: the Ricoh Gen 5 print head allows for a higher quality print at a fraction of the time- effectively increasing production speed.

The XJET800 has a large print area of 800 x 600mm (31.5” x 23.6”) with a 10” adjustable vertical height. Much like the XJET, the XJET800 comes equipped with Inkcups’ patented programmable servo controlled load station (Patent No. 9,221,281 B2). Print an entire bed of parts while loading new parts to be printed. Never slow down production.

Printing is completely customizable, featuring: High-speed Uni- or Bi-directional printing, Variable Resolution settings up to 1200dpi and Variable dot size (7pl, 14pl, 21pl.) The ink system is state of the art, featuring: a highly opaque white, automatic white ink maintenance, automatic negative pressure ink maintenance system and a bulk ink system.

For more information about the XJET800, please visit: http://www.inkcups.com/equipment/industrial-uv-inkjet-printers/uv-inkjet-printer/Default.aspx 

There are many different manufacturers of inkjet printers out there- which leads many to the problem of ‘which one should I choose’? It is difficult to keep track of all this information so we did the dirty work for you! Check out this awesome chart outlining some of the important features you may be interested in researching:

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Outsourcing industrial printing projects is a common practice among small-medium sized companies but there comes a time when waiting on printed products, meeting certain minimums and sending artwork back and forth starts to waste more time than save money. Bringing printing inside seems like a difficult process but the flexibility it offers is tremendous. Once you have decided to take this step, the method to which you can print becomes the tough choice.

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