Cardiac & Vascular
Coronary, peripheral, and central vascular catheters. PEBAX, PEEK, polyurethane substrates. Scale markings, lot codes, band markers. 360° full-wrap on round tubing.
Application · Medical Device · Catheter Decoration
40 years of purpose-built catheter printing.
The product ladder Class VI medical compliance built.
Catheters are patient-contact medical consumables — a different regulatory tier than device housings. No Class VI certified inkjet inks exist for patient-contact tubing. Pad printing is the only viable process today, and EPS has been building the cells around it since 1985 — the only complete catheter-specific product ladder in the market.
40
Years engineering catheter cells (since 1985)
3 French
Minimum tube diameter (~1 mm)
360°
Full-wrap pad print
ISO 10993
Biocompatibility validated · Class VI ink
What we mean by catheter printing
A separate regulatory tier with a separate engineering discipline.
Catheters live in their own regulatory tier. Patient-contact tubing requires Class VI biocompatible ink chemistry — and no Class VI biocompatible inkjet inks exist today for patient-contact surfaces. The technology timeline to change that is 5–10 years minimum. Pad printing is the only viable process, and the cells around it have to be engineered to a different standard than industrial decoration cells: cleanroom-compatible, multi-SKU agile, validated end-to-end.
EPS has spent 40 years building exactly those cells. The product ladder runs from benchtop R&D (KP05/06) through the (EPS Flagship Catheter system) KP08 Servo, the dual-cupslide KE13, and a proprietary 14+ color telescoping pad bar. Every cell ships with the validation package the customer’s quality system needs: ISO 10993 biocompatibility testing + IQ/OQ/PQ documentation. Most competitors sell printers; EPS sells qualification-ready cells.
Catheter families
Five catheter families EPS systems decorate today.
Different polymers, different geometries, different decoration requirements. EPS engineers the cell around the family.
Urinary & Foley
Silicone and latex Foley catheters with length markers, manufacturer ID, and balloon-volume indicators. High-volume cells with custom transport.
Neurovascular & Microcatheters
Sub-3-French microcatheters (tubes as small as 1 mm). Optical sensor and precision tooling for sub-mm placement accuracy on polyimide and reinforced polymers.
Diagnostic & Imaging
Markings for fluoroscopic and ultrasound visualization, radiopaque band positioning verification, brand identification. Validated against imaging-modality compatibility.
Drainage, Feeding & Specialty
Flow-direction indicators, depth markers, manufacturer ID on drainage tubes, feeding catheters, and specialty medical tubing. Multi-color brand + variable data in one cell.
Featured customer
Zeus: KE13 cell for a multi-million-dollar capacity expansion.
Zeus — a global leader in advanced polymer solutions and a leading manufacturer of catheters and medical tubing — announced a multi-million dollar investment in 2022 to expand its catheter manufacturing capacity worldwide, more than doubling its San Jose, CA footprint. EPS, a long-time provider of catheter printing machines for Zeus, engineered a KE13-based pad cell to support the new line: a 360° vacuum catheter fixture bed to hold the tubing in place, a pad shuttle, and two opposing servo-driven cupslides that meet in the middle of the cliché. The cell architecture handles the multi-SKU catheter mix Zeus runs without mechanical reconfiguration.
$M+
Capacity expansion investment (2022)
2×
San Jose facility footprint growth
KE13
Dual-cupslide pad platform
“This KE13-based catheter printing cell will allow Zeus to meet the immediate requirements of its customers best.”
— Suresh Sainath, General Manager and Senior Vice President, Zeus CathX Medical division
Case studies
Catheter decoration cells EPS has shipped.
Real customer cells — full process walkthroughs.
Case Study · Medical Devices
Fourteen Colors on a Catheter, with One Operator at the HMI
KE13 14C consolidates fourteen pad-print stations onto one chassis. One technician at the HMI, one handling event per part — labor and scrap risk collapse together.
The complete catheter product ladder
Four cell tiers — benchtop R&D through proprietary multicolor.
Pick the tier that matches your SKU mix, volume, and decoration complexity. EPS engineers the transport, pre-treatment, vision, cure, and unload around it.
KP05 / KP06
Benchtop R&D · 1–2 color
Entry-tier pad printers for catheter R&D and small-batch production. 140×70 to 220×110mm cups, vacuum catheter beds, French sizes 3–30. The platform you prototype on before scaling.
Explore Pad Printing →KP08 Servo
Industry workhorse · 80–90% of catheter sales
Multi-artwork cliché capability for near-instant SKU change via program selection. 110–130mm inkcup, Y and Z-axis servo control, 100 program memory, continuous cup doctoring, 15% faster than pneumatic models.
Explore Pad Printing →KE13
Dual servo cupslides · the Zeus platform
1,300mm dual-pad compression for extended-length catheters. Dual opposing servo cupslides that meet in the middle of the cliché. Windows OS, 20GB storage for hundreds of jobs, slide-out cliché support, motorized lift table. 25% faster than pneumatic.
Explore Servo-Electric →Multicolor — Telescoping Pad Bar
13+ colors in a single cycle (proprietary)
Proprietary EPS/Comec telescoping pad bar mechanism — up to 13+ colors in a single cycle, with custom configurations to 14 colors. No competitor offers an equivalent multi-color catheter platform. 25% speed increase over pneumatic.
Explore Pad Printing →
Why EPS for catheter printing
Five engineering decisions that separate catheter cells from pad printers.
What EPS catheter cells include that competitors' don't.
Inline vision verification
Every printed catheter validated at line rate — placement-error scrap stopped before it ships. Sample-based QA is not viable in a 24/7 catheter line.
Custom inline curing
Slow-drying ink chemistries (common in catheter substrates) require custom cure architecture — engineered into the cell, not bolt-on. Handles the long prints that pad-print catheter applications actually need.
Cleanroom-ready pretreatment
Deionization + corona surface activation matched to the catheter polymer. Cleanroom-compatible — no flame, no solvent flash, no ventilation footprint. Ships ready to install inside the customer's controlled environment.
Servo cupslides for multi-SKU runs
Servo-driven systems enable multi-SKU runs on a single cliché without mechanical reconfiguration or additional setup times. Change the artwork without changing the cliché.
Validated medical printing solution
EPS sells qualification-ready cells, not just printers. ISO 10993 biocompatibility testing + IQ/OQ/PQ documentation included. Class VI ink chemistry validated for PEBAX, Pellethane, PEEK. Competitors sell equipment; EPS hands the customer a validation-ready package their quality system can adopt and qualify without risk.
Scope your catheter line with engineering.
30 minutes covers SKU mix, volume, substrate (PEBAX / Pellethane / PEEK / silicone), cleanroom requirements, and automation goals. We'll tell you which tier of the product ladder fits and what the validation path looks like.