Single Pass Inkjet System Design
High speed inkjet system design and process development
Monday 27 -Tuesday 28 January 2025
Hotel Primus Valencia, Valencia, Spain
COURSE FOCUS
This course provides an in-depth course on the real-world challenges of designing and troubleshooting high-speed single pass inkjet printers. This course is tailored for anyone trying to understand printer design, and a proven process for troubleshooting printers. It will also cover the interactions between inks, printers, and substrate and the process of trade-offs.
Printer Development Process: Learn a step-by-step approach from market requirements to specific design suggestions. Understand drop placement error budgets, vendor collaboration, and decision-making trade-offs. The course focuses on 6 key areas:
Jetting Process: Explore the jetting process, key variables affecting image quality and reliability, and answers to critical questions like "What limits the speed of printing?" and "What causes jetting reliability issues?"
System Integration & Design Process: Identify and avoid common integration mistakes in ink supply design, encoder assembly, and substrate transport. Get actionable design suggestions to streamline your integration process.
Printhead & Ink Selection: Review available printheads and inks, discuss common applications, and learn how to match printheads and inks to your specific needs.
Application Process Development: Discover process development and testing procedures to fine-tune printing processes, including ink/substrate tuning, drying times, color laydown order, and more.
Printer Troubleshooting & Issue Resolution: Gain insights into methods for debugging printer and process issues, quick diagnostic tests, and solutions for more complex problems like color shift and image degradation.
Single pass production printer development is very challenging. This course provides a proven framework for printer development plus practical recommendations on key design areas, testing and solutions to common development mistakes. It also provides a proven troubleshooting process with specific tests and equipment needed. This course is also useful for inkjet suppliers to understand how their products fit into the printer development and tuning processes.
COURSE OUTLINE
Monday 27 January 2025
12:30 - 13:30 Registration
13:30 Course begins
High speed printer development: Challenges & markets
Why digital printing?
Inkjet vs. conventional printing: The cost curve advantage
Current & emerging single pass markets
Printer development process: Key areas of focus
Overview of product development
System architectures
Process development basics
Jetting process & effect of ink properties
Slow motion video of jetting
How ink properties affect jetting
Rectified diffusion and reliability issues
Flow-through vs. non-flow through printheads
Overview of drop placement error budgets
Common sources of errors
Error budgets concept
Banderly Curve: Determining drop placement error limits
Printhead mounting and substrate transport errors
17:00 Session ends
17:30 – 18:30 Reception
Join us for local beers, wines and good company!
Tuesday 28 January 2025
9:00 Course begins
Sub-system design
Encoder design
Printhead mounting
Print electronics integration
Drying/curing
Ink supply design
Non-recirculating systems: Vacuum feed, pump feed
Recirculating systems: Constant pressure, recirculating pump feedback, low-cost systems
White ink and high pigment load inks
Design of transport systems
Belt-based, web-based, sheetfed systems
Printing on 3D parts
Printer troubleshooting & issue resolution
Methods used when troubleshooting printers and required test equipment
Quick tests to diagnose common printing issues
Discuss interaction between different sub-systems, inks, substrate and environmental factors that make it difficult to diagnose issues
Learn detailed and methodical processes to troubleshoot difficult issues, such as color shift, long term nozzle reliability, etc.
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 Session begins
Printhead selection to match printing application
Common printhead specifications
Application requirements and constraints
Fit between printheads and applications
Ink selection to match printing application
Ink types and vendors
Recently developed ink types
Application requirements
Vendor identification and selection
Ink price negotiation and testing
Process development
Common process variables
Process testing and equipment
Ink/substrate interaction
Vendor & outside resource management
Key vendors and their services
Design and development management
17:00 Course ends
Course Leader
Rob Rogers, Consultant
Rogers Consulting, USA
Rob has been involved in the inkjet industry for over 20 years, where he has been responsible for the design of a wide range of inkjet production printing systems including high speed on-press variable data printers, inkjet label printing presses, a one hundred part per minute container printer, flooring printers, a solar cell deposition system and many others.
Rob has worked at Dimatix where he assisted international customers with new product development. Rob was a Co-Founder and Principal Engineer of Jetrion, an EFI company. While at Jetrion he was responsible for multiple custom inkjet production machines and the first commercially successful inkjet label press. More recently he has consulted at Heidelberg, Mark Andy, and other clients.