There are basically three types of inkjet printers, Thermal Inkjet (TIJ), Continuous Inkjet (CIJ) and Drop on Demand Inkjet (DOD), all with their own key benefits and solutions to specific needs. Understanding the differences between them will help you determine which is best for your printing job.
Thermal Inkjet Printers (TIJ)
This type of printer has been developed to provide high quality printing coupled with high speed and flexibility in terms of the packing requirements. It is well established in its industry and is known to be reliable, maintenance free and overall clean printing job. In many industries it is used for numerous applications on both porous and non-porous surfaces.
If the printer is coupled with an offline feeding system it is a great match for the following:
- Printing serial identifications for the medical industry
- Printing dates on food sleeves
- Identification purposes and verification for the pharmaceutical industry
- Serialized coding of Tyvek® medical pouches, pharmaceutical labels and cartons
The overall benefits of this setup would be the combined print head and ink cartridge (think HP or Lexmark cartridges for desk top printers) making the setup virtually maintenance free along with exceptional quality of the print at a high speed rate creating a lot of flexibility depending the situation and job at hand.
Continuous Inkjet Printers (CIJ)
Different from the TIJ, the CIJ uses an electrically charged ink to create hi-resolution characters based on a specific formation. These printers can use a wide variety of ink and are easy to install and very versatile. Their uses involve printing text and graphic on just about any surface while creating a high quality print.
If the printer is coupled with an offline feeding system it is a great match for the following:
- Date coding of food sleeves.
- Carton coding of difficult substrates
The benefit is an extremely flexible printing application at high speed that is easily installed and has a huge variety of inks to match the material it is printing on.
Drop-On-Demand Inkjet Printers (DOD)
This printer type allows for a diverse printing ability from production dates on a wide variety of products to barcodes and they create hi-resolution images, which is ideal for graphics.
If the printer is coupled with an offline feeding system, similar to the CIJ, it is a great match for the following:
- Mailing and addressing applications.
- Commercial printing of plastic cards and business forms.
The benefit is an extremely flexible printing application and can print in a variety of ways, personalized to the needs of the user.
For more information about these printers, review our inkjet products or contact us for more information.
