5 Steps to Optimize Small Character Marking Devices in Production Lines-Industry News-DEMIN

5 Steps to Optimize Small Character Marking Devices in Production Lines

2025-09-05(132)Views

On high-speed automotive parts or pharmaceutical packaging production lines, minor malfunctions of small character inkjet printers can result in downtime losses of tens of thousands of yuan per hour. By systematically optimizing the five-step method, manufacturing enterprises can increase the overall efficiency (OEE) of inkjet coding equipment by more than 30%, while reducing ink consumption and maintenance costs by 25%.

On high-speed automotive parts or pharmaceutical packaging production lines, minor malfunctions of small character inkjet printers can result in downtime losses of tens of thousands of yuan per hour. By systematically optimizing the five-step method, manufacturing enterprises can increase the overall efficiency of inkjet coding equipment by more than 30%, while reducing ink consumption and maintenance costs by 25%.

ink-jet printer

The first step starts with environmental parameter calibration
A temperature fluctuation exceeding ±2℃ can cause the ink viscosity to shift by 0.5cP, leading to code breakage or ink flying. Use a digital viscometer for daily testing. Keep the environment within the range of 18-25℃ and humidity of 45%-65%, and ensure that the dew point temperature of the compressed air is below -40℃ (to prevent nozzle condensation water from diluting the ink). A certain medical device factory has reduced the failure rate of inkjet coding from 3.2 times per week to 0.4 times through the renovation of a constant-temperature workshop.

The second step focuses on the fine control of printing quality
When the printing height deviates from the optimal value (usually 5-10mm), the error of the ink drop point will be magnified to 0.3mm. The vertical distance between the nozzle and the object is calibrated using a laser positioning instrument. At the same time, the charging value (±10V) and the phase Angle (±0.5μs) are adjusted to stabilize the charge carried by the ink droplets. For reflective metal surfaces, switching the ink formula to high-contrast UV-curing type can increase the inkjet code reading rate from 78% to 99.5%. Cases in the electronics industry show that when printing serial numbers with a character height of 0.8mm on PCB boards, precisely controlling the ink droplet Break Point within the range of 140-160μs can eliminate the character trailing phenomenon.

The third step is the digital upgrade of preventive maintenance
Traditional periodic maintenance leads to 48% over-maintenance, while real-time monitoring of three key indicators can provide precise intervention: ink conductivity (standard value 800-2000μS/cm), filter pressure difference (replacement is required if >1.5Bar), and nozzle vibration frequency (reference value 120kHz±5%). Install IoT sensors on each device and connect them to the MES system. When the ink sediment concentration exceeds 0.3%, the flushing program will be automatically triggered to avoid an average of 6.7 hours of clogging downtime per year. After implementation by a certain beverage factory, the lifespan of the nozzles was extended from 400 hours to 1,500 hours.

The fourth step is to implement a dynamic management strategy for consumables
35% of the ink waste in small character inkjet printers is due to unreasonable viscosity compensation. Establish an ink consumption model: 12ml of solvent-based ink is consumed for every 1 million characters printed (consumption increases by 8% for every 5℃ increase in ambient temperature). The remaining volume of the ink tank is monitored in real time through load cells. When the remaining 15% is reached, the warehousing system is linked to replenish the goods, and the usage data is fed back to the ink supplier to optimize the formula. After the cosmetics enterprise adopted this solution, the annual ink procurement cost was reduced by 190,000 US dollars.

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