Long-term relationship leads the way in coding & marking

The combination of high-quality, consistency and reliability has made Xaar printheads the continual choice for Squid Ink and its industrial coding and marking printers for over 20 years.

Based in Minneapolis, USA, Squid Ink specialises in the manufacture of industrial inkjet printers and high-quality inkjet inks for the packaging industry. The business has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the inkjet industry, which led to it designing a complete family of large character and hi-resolution printing systems.

Squid Ink currently has six print systems using Xaar printheads. These fourth-generation printers utilise the Xaar 128 printhead to provide the reliability and quality customers demand from their Coding and Marking applications.

“The Xaar 128 printhead is compatible with a wide variety of inks and delivers excellent print quality,” said Chad Carney, Vice President of Marketing at Engage, Squid Ink’s parent company.

“This has meant that Xaar has been at the heart of many of our printers since their launch, providing the reliability and low maintenance that customers really value.”

The Xaar 128 has maintained its position as the leading 17 mm piezoelectric drop-on-demand printhead of choice for the Coding & Marking sector. Its 20-year proven track record of reliability, ease of integration, throughput, speed and quality of print have made this printhead continuously sought after.

With a focus on providing high-quality products at a fair price, Squid Ink’s printers are built on expertise and are designed to provide excellent print results using the company’s speciality inks.

“Our background in ink development means that we are able to provide Coding and Marking solutions for a wide variety of products and applications,” said Chad. “The Xaar 128 printhead is able to deal with all these formulations and this provides great flexibility to our customers, allowing them to run different inks through virtually any of our printing systems.

“Working with Xaar has been key to our successful printer development and the support we have received has been critical in this process.”

Recent manufacturing optimisations have enabled Xaar to provide the Xaar 128 with a programmable circuit which offers advanced control and tuning of the printhead as well as better control of ink characteristics and print quality.

With a focus on continual R&D, Squid Ink is looking at a number of developments for its Coding and Marking printers. From ensuring their speed keeps up with the latest production lines to providing lower maintenance printers and a corresponding lower total cost of ownership, the business aims to deliver the features and benefits customers value most.

“We are proud of the relationship our two companies have had for the past 20 years,” said Graham Tweedale, General Manager of Xaar’s printhead business unit. “It is clear that the Xaar 128’s reliability, quality and durability has been central to this partnership and we look forward to building on this success and continuing to provide support for Squid Ink’s latest Coding and Marking applications.”