A specialist ink manufactured by Linx Printing Technologies – Linx Black UV-cure ink 1370 – is providing Fotolec with reliable light-fast coding for its innovative shatterproof lighting range.
Fotolec Technologies Ltd is Europe’s largest manufacturer of fragment retention safety lamp coatings, providing unique protection against glass contamination from accidental lamp breakage. The company’s high quality GlassGuard Black Band® coatings are designed to provide the highest level of protection for applications where safety and hygiene are paramount, for example public areas or food service environments.
In order to ensure good traceability, Fotolec required a solution for coding directly on the lamp that could ensure long-term legibility. At the same time, flexibility in changing code data was vital as the nature of the required information varies from customer to customer.
After reliability issues with its previous supplier resulted in unanticipated downtime costs, Fotolec trialed several new coders with a view to improving code quality and reducing the overall cost of ownership. One of the machines on trial was one of Linx’s leading Continuous Ink Jet (CIJ) printers, which “never missed a beat over the two months of the trial period,” confirms Chris Wright, Production Manager at Fotolec.
As a result of this success, Fotolec replaced its three existing printers with the Linx models, using Linx Black UV-cure ink 1370, a special ink that is designed to withstand the light produced by the lamps.
Conventional industrial ink jet inks dry by evaporation of solvent after printing, to leave a solid ink film. A UV-cure ink jet ink differs in that it essentially remains in a liquid form after printing, and only becomes solid after exposure to intense UV light. This curing process causes the constituents of the ink to react together to form a solid ink film that, once fully cured, exhibits excellent resistance to most aggressive solvents and offers superior abrasion resistance compared to conventional CIJ inks.
Fotolec has confirmed the benefits of Linx Black UV-cure ink 1370 for coding the light bulbs. “A standard ink would fade over time in such close proximity to artificial light, but the Linx ink has proved its light-fastness,” explains Chris Wright.
The versatility of Linx’s printer solutions, the level of care & professionalism in the after sale service also impressed Fotolec. In particular, the coder’s customisable Logo Editor ensures fast and intuitive changeovers, enabling the company to quickly set up batch code and logo formats to suit customer requirements with negligible disruption to productivity.
For more information on Linx’s products and services, visit www.linx.co.uk
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