At present, a large number of ceramic tile productions in China are mostly flat screen printing and rotary screen printing. However, these two printing processes require a large amount of preparation time and a large amount of manual investment. Although the industrial printing process has been very mature, The method of printing the silk screen close to the tile will have an important influence on the yield and quality of the printing tile production.
When observing and analyzing from the perspective of accelerating market changes, we can also see that due to increasing global commercial competition and rising cost pressures, the traditional process of producing tiles cannot keep up with the development of the situation. Although industrial silk prints have many advantages over manual print operations, there are still many drawbacks to this type of rigid copy method. Therefore, the ceramic industry quickly realized the benefits of using non-contact printing technology, especially the piezoelectric drop-on-demand inkjet technology will bring huge benefits to the industry.
Using inkjet technology can increase the speed of printing process production, reduce costs, maintain and improve the quality of ceramic printing products, support product versatility and increase production. In short, inkjet technology can meet the requirements set by different markets today, paving the way for new opportunities and new applications. Although the current digital printing technology can not completely replace the traditional production process, but the practice has proved that the use of digital printing technology can get a lot of benefits from the printing of ceramic tiles.
At present, various markets have imposed higher requirements on shortening the tile production process. Tile manufacturers have to look for printing printing equipment that can provide high printing image quality, high production efficiency and versatility. Compared with other transfer printing systems, digital inkjet technology has more advantages in meeting these needs. These advantages include streamlined production operations, improved image accuracy, extended working life and the ability to apply a wider range of inks.
Compared with screen printing inks, inks used in ink jet printing have lower viscosities, which makes it possible to control high solids (ie higher pigment content) inks while maintaining uninterrupted contactless ink jet printing. Being a decisive factor for success is also a challenge for inkjet solution providers. In the past 30 years, piezoelectric ink-jet technology has brought huge benefits to printing system manufacturers and end-users, and has been specifically designed to meet the demanding requirements of industrial production. At the same time, design has focused on the need to withstand harsh environmental conditions.
Among them, the print head is widely accepted by merchants and users because it has the ability of continuous high-frequency ink jetting and the ability to apply a variety of inks, while simultaneously satisfying the advantages of high precision and high speed. Droplet accuracy is the basis for obtaining high-quality images. A low drop accuracy can result in blurred images and defects.
The printhead's excellent characteristics come from the company's patented design, which is designed to give each nozzle channel a piezoelectric excitation source that is physically isolated from the fluid channel. The design method of isolating the piezoelectric excitation source from the ink used in the ink jet enables the printing head to apply a wide variety of formula inks, including conductive inks, and enables all the nozzles on the print head to be individually addressed and stimulated, that is, simultaneously. The ejected droplets are stimulated to make the droplets of the droplets high-frequency, linearly and accurately fall on a predetermined position by the inherently low mutual interference characteristics between the channels. The design of the inkjet printing head based on the full-load working effect piezoelectric ink-jet printing head has the inherent high-speed characteristics and the ability to support higher production requirements.
While maintaining the linearity of ink jet, this ability to continuously stimulate ink jets at high frequencies (above 40KH) gives machine designers more freedom to allow wider gaps between nozzles and tiles or other substrates. Clearance distance. The gap here refers to the distance of the print head nozzle to the surface of the substrate. The increase in gap distance provides greater flexibility to accommodate different substrate grades and surface roughness. The increase in gap distance also reduces the risk of damage to the printhead by accidental contact with the substrate surface during printing. Comparing two different printheads at the same gap distance for actual ink jet printing, working at the same high speed printing speed, where the device using a print head operating at a higher droplet speed and better ink jet linearity gains apparent Better picture quality.
Piezo inkjet technology is a mature industrial inkjet technology, has been widely used in the production of billboard products, because the device using the technology uses a very small degree of conductive droplets to form a fine image array . One of the keys to discussing inkjet applications is the droplet size, the physical volume of the tiny droplets ejected from the printhead. Taking into account the need to meet a variety of requirements, such as the performance of various colors and coating shades, and the need to print on a variety of different types of substrate surface, tile production faces a series of unique challenges.
In response to the challenge, the developed variable droplet technology is an advanced inkjet technology that can eject 2 to 150 picoliters (pL) of each of several thousand nozzles on a printhead or multiple printhead arrays. ) Variable size ink droplets.
Thanks to this technique, any nozzle on a print head or head module can be simply programmed to eject droplets of the same size in each piezoelectric excitation cycle. This technique more perfectly illustrates the grayscale printing function. Based on the programmed control of a specific channel, in the same work screen, the ink droplets of different sizes are stimulated to be ejected, and the gray print function can operate the printing system to print images requiring a richer tone level or higher resolution at the highest production speed.
It is conceivable that the use of variable ink drop technology in a production line with multiple print heads can be of great benefit. Whether it is in line or in a square pattern, or a mixture of the two, it can be appreciated that ink jet technology is The tremendous potential for development in ceramic printing.
In order to maximize the uptime of the printing system, several breakthrough innovations are worth mentioning, such as the unique nozzle plate design, special conformal and non-wetting surface coating, enhanced print head circuitry, and continuous nozzle recirculation , as well as custom waveforms for special jets, all contribute to the print head's full-load capacity, while reducing recurring maintenance costs. These innovative technologies can reduce the initial start-up and non-stop dynamic maintenance time and reduce the consumption of related liquids, especially when using fast dry ink or heavy pigment formula inks, as used in industrial tile decoration high-speed one-off inkjet printing systems. Ink.
For tile production, the durability of inkjet printheads is extremely important and demanding, as glass-based inks and other heavy pigment formula inks are used here to obtain products that are eye-catching and have a strong coloring design.
As we all know, the Demetex print head has a high full-load cycle ratio and long life, so the print head product also supports the printing of a wide variety of inks and other types of liquids, which allows the use of print head equipment to meet more For specific application requirements, these applications require not only fine images and high-speed production capabilities, but also reliable and economical operation.
At present, from the hot discussion of new technologies to the adoption of new technologies, the ceramics production industry has completely switched to inkjet printing technology and equipment, and it is only a matter of time sooner or later.