Allen Coding has launched the latest Diagraph IJ Series printer, the Diagraph IJ4000 high-resolution large character inkjet system designed to print alphanumerics, barcodes and graphics onto porous substrates.
The cost-competitive printer combines industry-leading barcode decode-ability, industry-leading system durability and industry-leading print throw distance with the lowest maintenance requirements on the market.
Industry-Leading Barcode Decode-ability & Print Throw Distance
Three unique features combine to allow the Diagraph IJ4000 to provide best-in-the-market print consistency on challenging packaging lines where boxes are rarely perfectly uniform.
First, precision print placement is ensured by a unique roller retractor and a digital level sensor accelerometer. The roller retractor provides a consistent gap between the print surface and print engine. A green LED light on the digital level accelerometer indicates when the print engines are perfectly aligned and perpendicular with the packaging material to be printed- regardless of floor variations. This ensures high-quality print and optimal readability for bar codes.
Secondly, the print engines of the Diagraph IJ4000 provide throw distances of 12mm for alphanumerics and an industry-leading 6mm for barcodes. This is double the 3mm throw distance currently provided in the market for readable barcodes. In addition to ensuring high-quality print, the increased throw distance also reduces the impact of corrugate dust, glue and contaminants resulting in reduced maintenance needs.
Finally, the unique design of the print engine ensures print is high contrast.
Combined these features allow the Diagraph IJ4000 to offer a 35% improvement on barcode decode-ability compared to competing systems available in the market.
Industry-Leading Print Height
The Trident print heads on the IJ4000 provide a print height of 100mm, 40% taller than any alternative print head. This allows for larger graphics and additional lines of text. In order to achieve this print height, competing technologies would require two standard 50mm printheads at significant additional cost.
Industry-Leading Flexibility & Ease of Use
The Diagraph IJ4000 was carefully designed based on customer feedback for optimal ease of use. The system features a unique HMI (Human Machine Interface) wherein the print engine, encoder and photocell connections run directly and cleanly to the connection hub. This allows the HMI to be moved to a remote location for greater ease of use. The HMI can be as far away as 100 meters when connected via Ethernet and an unlimited distance when connected through a Network.
The system offers a great deal of flexibility with both on-floor and in-office editing capabilities. The intuitive interface provides the option of use with a personal PC, eliminating the need for a separate controller and reducing cost by as much as 15%.
The integrated 10.2 inch touch screen controller interface eliminates the need for a separate keyboard, thereby reducing the system footprint. The print head for the Diagraph IJ4000 is compact in all three dimensions and further flexibility is provided by a dovetail track on both sides of the print engines for ease of mounting on either side of the conveyer.
While many printing technologies advertise that they are 'Unicode-ready' they often mean that language characters are used as locked images. This is not the same as true real-time, variable print Unicode capabilities. The Diagraph IJ4000 was specially designed to provide real-time printing in 11 languages.
Lowest Maintenance Requirements in the Market
The Diagraph IJ4000 features the lowest maintenance requirements of any similar system in the market today.
The printer features a unique single point ink supply that can feed as many as four different print engines. This greatly reduces downtime and simplifies the fluid refill process as it is not necessary to monitor and maintain individual ink supplies.
The system′s unique digital level accelerometer has a sensor which indicates if the print engine has tilted plus or minus 1.5 degrees both for ease of installation and to assure the print gap between print head and carton is consistent along the entire print image.
A new auto-channel purge allows all 256 print head channels to be quickly checked by a simple push of a button on the print head right on the packaging line. Maintenance is further simplified by hard-mounted, easily accessible filters and a centralized connection point that reduces cabling requirements.
Taken together, these features allow the Diagraph IJ4000 to provide as much as 30% less downtime than alternative technologies.
Industry-Leading Print Engine Durability
Featuring unique-in-the-industry stainless steel construction, and patented repairable (rather than disposable) design, shock resistance capability and automatic maintenance modules, the Trident print engines in the Diagraph IJ Series of industrial high-resolution printers provide industry-leading durability. Whereas traditional print engines might need to be replaced as often as every few months, Trident technology can last as long as 10 years or 300 billion firings. This allows the Diagraph IJ4000 to provide industry-leading durability with projected lifespan being as much as five times longer than competitive technologies.
"The IJ4000 is the result of over five years of intensive research into user needs," said Emely Heizenroether, LCIJ Product Specialist at Allen Coding. "It was thoughtfully designed with a number of unique-in-the-market features to provide customers with significant performance benefits at a competitive price."
