Digital UV Inkjet Print For Variable Image TIckets

National Ticket Company in the USA a ticket printing operation, is improving its variable imaging capabilities.

National Ticket Company in the USA a ticket printing operation, is improving its variable imaging capabilities.

Since the company's ticket and visual identification products are produced on a range of substrates, both synthetic and traditional paper, National Ticket, which had been using toner-based printers, wanted greater flexibility and productivity in its variable imaging operations.

Ed Ludes vice president of production at National Ticket, said: "Digital UV inkjet technology was the solution we were looking for.

We quickly became aware of the potential of the Jetrion 3025 UV inkjet printer to help us significantly increase our variable data imaging capabilities." Jetrion did an extensive pre-installation survey of the press equipment that the 3025 system printheads would be installed on, and designed a custom printhead mount for the press.

Five printheads were installed on the press - Jetrion's first five-printhead installation.

The multi-head configuration allows National Ticket to print variable images across an entire 12-inch area of the web.

"The installation went as planned," observed Ludes.

"Jetrion thought of everything up front and the installation went as smoothly as we could ever want, for a modification of an existing piece of equipment in our plant." Ludes pointed out that the results National Ticket is getting with the 3025 system are noticeably better than those provided by toner-based systems.

Early in the installation planning process, Jetrion worked with the company to determine which UV ink formulation would produce the best results on the various substrates that National Ticket would be using.

Using its core competence as an ink developer and manufacturer, Jetrion said it was able to optimise overall system performance to meet National Ticket's throughput, drop spread and adhesion requirements.

Ludes explained: "With Jetrion's UV ink, we're getting far better adhesion and durability across the board for our products." He said that toner-based images have a tendency to flake off a printed product as it is being used.

Image durability is an important issue for many types of products, such as season tickets or other printed products with multiple uses that may be carried in a pocket or handled for several months.

In addition to enhanced durability and print quality, National Ticket has also realised an important gain in uptime and productivity that the Jetrion 3025 UV system has provided.

"We're able to shut the system down over a weekend, come back on Monday morning, do a quick purge and be up and running in minutes," Ludes said.

He contrasted that with non-UV systems, which have serious start-up issues when they have been sitting idle for just a few hours.

The fluids in those systems dry in the nozzles and require lengthy maintenance procedures to clean before restarting.

UV inks stay wet until they are cured and always flow smoothly through the nozzles.

A sharp increase in printhead reliability has also been a major advantage of the new system, said Jetrion.

"We've been using the Jetrion system since the beginning of the year and we've had literally zero downtime associated with the printheads," explained Ludes.

And he continued: "The 3025 has also allowed us to increase our press speed.

On some products we have seen running speed increases in the 10 per cent to 15 per cent range, and that's a significant productivity gain." Ludes cited the simplicity of operation with the 3025 system compared with other inkjet systems National Tickets has used.

He said: "The learning curve was easy to climb.

Our operator was able to learn the software and use the system quickly just with Jetrion's basic instruction.

In fact, he was able to understand the software and hardware so well, he started offering suggestions to increase production." Ludes added: "We're impressed with the continuing support we're getting from Jetrion.

They have been very good in listening to our problems and suggestions, then offering software and ink upgrades to address those issues.

No matter if it's a new development or a problem, Jetrion handles it quickly, professionally and hassle-free.

They have a great product and are a good company to work with." National Ticket celebrates its centenary year in 2007 and remains owned and managed today by the same two families that originally founded the company.

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