At drupa24, Namrata Sharma’s Global Print Konnect agency — which helps to introduce Western inkjet professionals to the Indian market — brought together suppliers of inkjet heads, technologies, and consumables to bump up the manufacture, trading, training, and assembly of digital inkjet output devices, inks, and presses in India.
Throughout the show, Packaging South Asia editor Naresh Khanna conducted video interactions with representatives of the allied companies — taking the viewers for a walk in Hall 5 to witness the recent developments in the inkjet infrastructure that India is set to witness.
Seiko Instruments, Kao Chimigraf, Meteor, People & Technology, and Trijet are part of the alliance to facilitate the development and growth of inkjet-based technologies in India. Collectively at drupa, the companies showcased their new and improved technologies along with progressive discussions of how the Global Print Konnect plans to enhance the inkjet infrastructure in India.
Tri Tuladhar director of Trijet plans to open a training center in India. Trijet focuses on the complex rheology of inkjet printing inks and has developed techniques to link fluid rheology to jetting behavior. During a meeting of the alliance in Delhi in February, several issues surrounding the development of inkjet technologies were discussed. Launching a training center in India was dubbed as a cornerstone for the whole initiative.
“Inkjet is a technology that is driven by multiple layers of physics and chemistry with several parameters such as deformation, processing time, processing rate, temperature, fine-tuning, and more,” Tuladhar said in an interaction with Khanna. “India is developing inkjet technologies at a rapid rate but there are several missing links in the knowledge transfer. Even when the properties of inks are the same, the ink jets differently. We will focus on these know-how and parameters during the training, which will include technicalities such as waveform, ink formulation, and printhead maintenance.”
Khanna remarked during the conversation, “It doesn’t happen with band-aids, it happens with surgery, so all the talk about innovation, collaboration, and sustainability goes down the drain without being careful about the intricate science that goes behind.”
At drupa, Kao Chimigraf showed a new concept for deinking inkjet inks from flexible films also known as thermo switch polymers. It uses a change in water temperature to trigger a chemical reaction that switches the polymer, which could be in the ink. Thus, the ink, instead of binding to the substrate, would be repelled by it, allowing it to float separately without emulsifying into the water. The company, with manufacturing sites in Europe, Japan, and the US, also plans to expand in India with its entire gamut of inks and products.
Marc Granero, inkjet sales manager, told Khanna that India is very important for Kao. “We are looking toward India as it is sure to be the next big market. With emerging players in manufacturing and converting, the opportunities are huge, and with support from Sharma, we plan to bring our entire product gamut to India with a local sales team at the helm,” Granero said.
Effective cleaning technology is critical for maintaining print quality, extending the lifespan of the printer, and reducing downtime due to maintenance issues. People and Technology’s project manager, Roberto Campos Orgaz, demonstrated the company’s printhead cleaning and maintenance technologies. Demonstrating the new Smart Clean Jector range, Orgaz says that the cleaning is an automatic process.
Khanna inquired if the machine is online or offline (cleans and flushes within the press or needs to be detached to be cleaned). Orgaz said that cleaning internally puts the production to a halt. He recommended stocking on extra 4-set printheads so the production and cleaning can go side-by-side without any stops.
The new Smart Clean Jector can analyze what’s happening on each printhead in color schemes. Green means the nozzles are fine, yellow says the nozzles are clogged and red says that the nozzle is broken. This analysis becomes important to know if a printhead needs to be maintained or replaced.
“We can control every parameter on this machine. How many times a printhead has been cleaned, how much time it took to clean and how much did it take last time, giving us the whole background of the printhead. It utilizes a cloud-based computing software. Even on a new printhead, it can analyze any damage to ensure that it is safe to use,” said Orgaz.
David Heath from Meteor says the company is continuously improving its design, considering the printhead size. “We have improved the data paths so the electronics can work the same way with other printheads in the system. We are trying to bring inkjet technologies in India with the full spectrum of original heads, inks, and technologies with accessibility to service and training.”
According to Aliasgar Eranpurwala, head of Seiko’s inkjet printheads department, the company is trying to deliver what the market needs. “We have a printhead that is capable of printing at 600 dpi. We are keeping what we are good at, and that is recirculation technology,” he said. “Recirculation not only above the nozzle but a through flow circulation. The ink goes all the way to the nozzles and recirculates above it, giving a reliable print quality required by printing solutions.”
Seiko launched its RCE 2560 printhead at the show, wherein RC stands for recirculation and 2560 is the number of nozzles that can be fired. It is a 108 mm printhead and the company is doing all the testing, keeping it 3 mm from the substrate instead of the 1 mm or 1.5 mm, which is a standard market practice. “The 3 mm tests ensure the directional accuracies, the velocity of the drops, and drop volumes of the printhead. We focus on industrial markets, for instance on a corrugated board where the surface could be wavy or have moisture a printhead that jets from a distance could prove to be beneficial.”
To be industry-efficient and successful, any printing system requires the use of multiple technologies. Although there are a large number of print head manufacturers globally, there are currently none in India. The development of inks and assembly into devices and presses is growing and Global Print Konnect presented a collaborative network of suppliers that can assist manufacturers in the selection of inputs, technologies, and suppliers for applications that they see as potential markets.
