Ink Jet Printers

I have an application that I am designing that will print on the side of a piece of painted materal. We would like to print with an ink jet printer. I have been in contact with VideoJet and they are working on finding me a printer that will do what I want. I would like a print head that will print numbers 90 degrees from normal printing. Normally the printer will print from left to right or right to left as the part moves to the right or left. I still need the part moving from the right to left, but the numbers are printed horizontally. ie. the top of the number is on the left and the bottom is on the right. The number I need printed could be from 1-60. They don't seem able to do this without using symbols and they don't think they could store enough symbols. Sorry about the vague and hard to understand description, but does any know of other ink jet printer manufactures?

We've done similar applications with products from:

http://www.domino-printing.com

http://www.linx.com.hk/product/inkjet.html
http://www.kortho.com/check/index.html
http://www.linx.com.hk/product/inkjet.html

I am not clear on some of the "I wants". What do you mean about 90 degrees from normal printing, most inkjets can be mounted horizontally or vertically but they can not print around cornets. Any "good" printer will position the numbers as needed...ie the number is 12345 and the product moves left to right then it will print in the order 54321 because it prints right to left...the number will read 12345.

Anyway, from what I can tell, it sounds like an application that needs a multi-head printer. These are used to print multiple numbers/characters at the same time, works great when printing west to east on an object traveling north to south...this what you mean about 90 degrees?

http://www.trident-itw.com/Catg2.asp?Cat1ID=1201&Cat2ID=317

http://www.matthewsmarking.com/products/index.php

Thanks for all the response. I will look into all of these printers.

It is hard to describe what I need.



The picture above might show it better. The numbers are turned 90 Deg. to the direction of the product flow. Some printers can print turned, but the result is a towered look like this.


I can not use this.

Thanks again

Can you use two print heads, one for the tens place and one for the ones place. This would allow printing 00 - 99 in the orientation you want.

Good idea. I didn't think of that. It would work. It doubles the cost, but it is an idea I need to consider.
Thanks

What is the material metal, plastic, fabric?
If metal or plastic laser may be better on low power.
Biggest problem is safety issues then with lasers