2011 was another monumental year for Inkcups Now! We grew as a company, introduced new products and updates to the market, expanded our presence in the garment tag printing (aka Inkcup Print) market. We have compiled a list of what we accomplished in the past year:

1. WE TURNED 10!
Inkcups Now celebrated its 10th year as a company! Starting out selling ink cups out of his basement, Ben Adner (President and founder) quickly turned this small company into a market leader in 10 short years! Even receiving the honor of being named entrepreneur of the year!

2. INKCUPS NOW EXPANDS THEIR FACILITY
In early 2011 Inkcups Now decided that we needed more space! We were expanding our inventory and simply could not house it all in a single place. We moved our entire ink, thinner and auxiliary line to a state of the art facility. We now have a larger inventory and faster than ever turnaround!

3. INCREASED WORK FORCE
Throughout the year Inkcups Now has obtained new employees in all departments of the company. We expanded our production department, our corporate sector and our sales department. We also have more international sales representatives in Central and South America.

4. INTRODUCED THE ICN-2200PS
The ICN-2200PS revolutionized 2 color pad printing. The reason why this machine is so effective in printing 2 colors is the fact that the parts do not move, only the pads, ensuring flawless 2nd color registration. The ICN-2200PS is also much faster than typical 2 color pad printing machines. The 2200PS is the most advanced 2 color pad printer on the market.

5. INTRODUCED THE ICN-B150
The ICN-B150, also known as the big brother to the ICN-B100, was an excellent addition to the ICN line of pad printers. This pad printer is a bench top model that now allows users to place in smaller work cells, yet can accommodate images up to 150mm in diameter. A great addition to any print shop!

6. INTRODUCED THE ICN-2200PSx
The ICN-2200PS was a great achievement for Inkcups Now and the printing industry as a whole. However, we managed to increase the speed of the machine by giving it an independent cup drive. The 2200PSx managed to increase the overall speed of the machine by 40%. This is now the fastest pad printer on the market today.

7. CREATED A ROTARY MODULE FOR THE MIMAKI UJF-3042
We built the first and only proprietary head lift system and rotary module for the Mimaki UJF-3042. The head lift system raises the print head to allow it to print on items up to 5 inches in height instead of the standard 2 inches. The rotary module gives the machine the ability to print on cylindrical objects, 360 degrees around.

8. NEW PLATE MATERIALS
We introduced new plate materials to the market for pad printing. Our premium orange laser plates are perfect for garment tag printing. Our gold plate material is great for doctoring because it has such a smooth glossy finish.

9. NEW TOUGHCUP
We redeveloped our ToughCup coating for the VersaCup Inkcup to be as tough as ever! The new coating even resists ink. The ink can literally sit over 48hours and harden inside the cup, no matter what the ink can be removed with just a single paper towel. A lot of companies have tried to introduce “green” products this year, Inkcups Now, however was the only one to truly succeed because there is no need to use chemicals and there is nothing to throw away.

10. SILICONE INK
Inkcups Now had begun selling a silicone ink that will adhere to any silicone material. The ink is available for pad printing and screen printing. The silicone ink can withstand extreme temperatures and will not crack or peel when bent.

What’s to come????
We plan on having another stellar year! We are going to continue to grow as a company. We are going to introduce a whole line of new machines, modifications to old machines, and continue to provide the best customer service in the industry.

What do you most want to see from Inkcups Now in 2012?

In the past, Inkcups Now had printed on guitar picks with the PromoJET solvent inkjet printer. The results were great, however there was room for improvement. The solvent ink worked well on most plastics, on delrin (a common guitar pick plastic) however, the solvent ink would bead up and did not adhere well. On all other plastics the image quality was great.

We have printed these guitar picks with UV curable ink instead of solvent ink. The major difference is the adhesion to all plastic materials (including delrin.) This UV inkjet ink also has a white ink. White ink creates a base for the colored ink, allowing the colors to really stand out. The ink is a UV LED ink, meaning the ink is cured by low temperature light. The low temperature ensures no heat damage to the product.

Printer used in this project:
Type: UV LED Inkjet Printer
Brand: Mimaki
Model: UJF-3042
Standard applications: Promotional products, Pens, etc…
More info: Mimaki UJF-3042 Inkjet Printer page

Printing on dominoes is a great application for the Mimaki UJF-3042 inkjet printer. The smooth surface texture would normally present a challenge to other inkjet printers because of adhesion quality, however for the superior Mimaki inkjet printer this task is not a problem.

With a little pretreatment, the Mimaki UJF-3042 was able to print these high resolution images on these dominoes. To really make these images pop, try adding a layer of white behind the color.

Printer used in this project:
Type: UV LED Inkjet Printer
Brand: Mimaki
Model: UJF-3042
Standard applications: Promotional products, Pens, etc…
More info: Mimaki UJF-3042 Inkjet Printer page

Here at Inkcups Now. we love it when we get the opportunity to print on new applications. The results are typically mixed, however with this Mimaki inkjet printer we haven’t yet found a bad application! Recently we attempted printing on bottle caps with the Mimaki UJF 3042 inkjet. The results were nothing short of fantastic!

The large format inkjet printer can hold over a hundred bottle caps at once, and thanks to its very sophisticated software we were able to print 4 different images at once. No more printing 1 image at a time! Some caps were printed with a layer of white under the color image, thanks to the staggered print head, the machine could accomplish this task simultaneously. Needless to say that we were very pleased with the results and are very happy with the Mimaki UJF 3042 inkjet printer.

Printer used in this project:
Type: UV LED Inkjet Printer
Brand: Mimaki
Model: UJF-3042
Standard applications: Promotional products, Pens, etc…
More info: Mimaki UJF-3042 Inkjet Printer page

The Mimaki UJF-3042 inkjet printer makes great, high quality, prints every time! We printed a sample for a customer on this leather binder. Typically, leather is a difficult material to inkjet print on because the leather is a dark in color and older inks would not adhere well to the material. Because of the Mimaki’s revolutionary design, this inkjet is able to print on leather with ease.

The Mimaki UJF-3042 inkjet printer allows the user to print in white and color at the same time because of the staggered print head design. We laid down a white back drop and printed the image on top of it. Printing on white really brings out the colors in the image. The ink is fully curable by low temp LED UV light, therefore no the heat will not damage the leather material during the curing process.

Also check out the alternative rotary printing attachment video here.

Contact Inkcups Now for additional information!

Printer used in this project:
Type: UV LED Inkjet Printer
Brand: Mimaki
Model: UJF-3042
Standard applications: Promotional products, Pens, etc…
More info: Mimaki UJF-3042 Inkjet Printer page

The Mimaki UJF-3042 UV LED inkjet printer is an impressive piece of technology. Not only does it print at an extremely high resolution and cures through low temperature LED light, but it can also print white and color inks simultaneously! For us here at Inkcups Now, that wasn’t good enough.

We looked at the Mimaki UJF-3042 design and said to ourselves “how can we make this better?” The answer came from some paper cubes a client was interested in printing on. The part was much too tall to fit into the machine and we realized that if we could print on parts up to 6″ in height instead of 2″, we could give the user a much wider range of applications. We got to work on it and 6 months later we developed an answer to this problem: the Proprietary Head Lift System.

The proprietary head lift system raises the machine up to fit larger parts up to 6″ in height. This head lift system is available ONLY from Inkcups Now! Take a look at these awesome cubes that we printed on featuring some of our staff!

Contact Inkcups Now for additional information!

Printer used in this project:
Type: UV LED Inkjet Printer
Brand: Mimaki
Model: UJF-3042 with Rotary Tooling Module
Standard applications: Bottles, Cups, Mugs…
More info: Mimaki UJF-3042 Inkjet Printer page

Here at Inkcups Now, we take pride in being innovators of our field. We strive to be the first in the industry with the latest and greatest technology. We have developed the first rotary tooling module for the Mimaki UJF-3042 LED UV printer. This exclusive part for the Mimaki printer is only available from Inkcups Now. What makes this innovative part so impressive is the fact that the original Mimaki printer could only print on items up to 2 inches in height. Well we raised the bar figuratively and literally by increasing the maximum part height to 6 inches! The rotary attachment gives the user the ability to print 360 degrees around cylindrical objects. Take a look at the video of this rotary printer in action. The Mimaki UJF-3042 inkjet printer features LED UV curable ink. The ink can be cured at lower temperatures than other UV curable inks, great for heat sensitive parts! This cylindrical printer produces high quality images (1200 x 1400 dpi) in brilliant colors. The rotary tooling module is easily installed or removed in minutes!

Printer used in this project: Type: UV LED Inkjet Printer Brand: Mimaki Model: UJF-3042 with Rotary Tooling Module Standard applications: Bottles, Cups, Mugs… More info: Mimaki UJF-3042 Inkjet Printer page

Inkcups Now has used one of its newest machines, the Mimaki UJF-3042, to print on all sorts of objects and promotional items. Recently the Mimaki printer was used to print on a sliding puzzle game. A sliding puzzle game typically has a grid of 9 squares in which one is missing. The user must slide one piece at a time to the correct position to reveal an image.

A sliding puzzle game is great for the promotional products industry. Giving away a free puzzle will attract attention because it is something different, something unique. Puzzles are better than pens or business cards because they require the user to apply thought and strategy consciously opposed to other promotional products that require no thought at all. For example: think of someone completing a puzzle only to realize that they have been staring directly at your company logo for over 20 minutes. Now that’s exposure!

There are almost endless images and ideas that can be printed directly onto these sliding puzzle games. The Mimaki UJF-3042 is able to apply an undercoat of white ink to make the other colors really stand out. At the same time, another layer of ink is printed on top of the white, with Mimaki’s staggered print-head. At an outstanding resolution, there are few printers on the market that can match the Mimaki UJF-3042′s quality of print.

The Mimaki UJF-3042 features:
• Resolution of 600dpi X 720dpi, 1,200dpi X 1,400dpi
• Staggered print arrangement for simultaneous white and color printing
• UV LED curable ink 6 colors (C, M, Y, K), White and Clear
• Automatic platform height adjust with laser height detection
• Accepts items up to 1.95″ (50mm) thick
• A print area of 11.81″ x 16.53″

Printer used in this project:
Type: Inkjet Printer
Brand: Mimaki
Model: UJF-3042
Standard applications: promotional items, pens, stress balls, other metal and plastic parts…
More info: Mimaki UJF-3042 Inkjet Printer page

Technorati tags: inkjet printing, promotional products, puzzles

Inkcups Now is expanding: from the Promotional Products Industry – to “Home Improvement”! Who says you can’t design and print your own granite backsplash? When you run out of granite you grab a fine piece of styrene sheet and put the Mimiaki Inkjet printer to work…

If it wasn’t for the thick white granite edge it would be almost impossible to tell which part was printed on. But yes, the vertical piece is the imprinted styrene sheet.

Paul is in the process of renovating his loft, including the countertops.  By taking a picture of the granite he was able transfer it to the Mimaki UJF-605Cll Inkjet System, digitally reproduce the image and print it to the styrene sheet.

Read more

This crystal clear imprint on this piece of glass (small version of a basketball backboard) was created using the Mimaki UJF-605CII Flatbed Inkjet Printer.

This inkjet printed glass was done in two parts; printing the colored logo first, then overprinting with white in order to make the artwork more opaque. We also printed the solid white stripe as an example of how the lines would look.

Since the impact of the basketball would eventually wear out an imprint we decided to print on the back on the board were the glass gives the impression that the print is on the front.

Before printing, Paul our Mimaki expert, started off by wiping the glass backboard down with our Glass Activator (Specially developed in our ICN Laboratory…) to get extra adhesion to the glass.

Read more