Single-Pass Inkjet Printers

What “single-pass” actually means

Every inkjet printer builds an image the same way — printheads fire UV-curable drops at the part. The architecture question is what moves. On a multi-pass machine, a printhead carriage sweeps back and forth over a stationary part, building the image in passes. On a single-pass line, the printheads never move: a fixed array spans the full print width, and the part travels beneath it once — in one side, decorated out the other. Speed is set by the conveyor, not by the number of passes.

That one architectural choice is why single-pass is the production tier of industrial inkjet. Depending on the object, single-pass lines run 50 to 2,000 parts per minute — up to 45,000 bottle caps an hour on the XD-70, up to 5,000 cylindrical parts an hour on the XD-360 — where a multi-pass carriage machine runs roughly 100 to 1,000 parts per hour.

The economics: both labor levers at once

Decoration lines pay for labor in two places: changeover — the setup, tooling and approvals between jobs — and production speed — the operator-hours in every thousand parts. Digital printing of any kind removes the tooling: no plates, no screens, and a SKU changeover is a file change that takes under 60 seconds. But only single-pass also moves the second lever. The line runs machine-paced instead of operator-paced — feeding, pretreatment, print, cure and off-load in one continuous transit — so the labor content of every thousand parts collapses along with the tooling.

As a working threshold: above roughly 100,000 parts per SKU per year, that labor line is what pays the system back. Below that band, a multi-pass system is usually the better buy — the full decision logic is in Single-Pass vs Multi-Pass.

Variable data — without giving up the rate

Any digital process can vary the image: serial numbers, lot codes, UDI marking, anti-counterfeit codes and personalization are file operations, not tooling. What single-pass adds is doing it at production volume — the image can change every single part with the line still running at full rate, which no plate-based process can do at any speed. For high-mix producers this is the capability that ends tooling libraries: MasterCut Tool runs 20,000+ SKUs with zero tooling, routing its high-volume runners to single-pass.

Color and cure: white + CMYK, UV-LED

EPS single-pass systems print white plus CMYK process color in one transit — greyscale printheads with multiple drop levels, a white underbase for dark or transparent substrates, and photographic gradients no spot-color process can match. UV-LED lamps pin and cure the ink in-line, so parts exit the machine finished and ready for packing.

Durability comes from the system, not the technology: ink chemistry, substrate, and pretreatment matched to each other. Engineered as a set, EPS cells hold scrap well under 1% in production — which is why we test adhesion on your actual parts before recommending anything.

One architecture, three geometries

The shape of your part picks the configuration, not the tier. Flat and semi-flat parts run the XD series linear transport. Bottles, tubes, cups and closures run the XD-360 cylindrical platform, rotating the part under the array for a full wrap. Complex three-dimensional parts — helmets, housings, handles — run the XD-R: the same print engine carried by a six-axis robot that presents each surface to the array in turn.

From printer to production line

A single-pass engine earns its keep when the whole line runs at its pace. That is why most EPS single-pass systems ship as engineered cells: bowl feeders or robotic loaders presenting parts, corona or flame pretreatment in-line, print, cure, camera inspection, and sorted discharge — no operator handling from stack to finished part. We build the machine and the automation around it as one system, which is what “engineered printing solutions” has meant since 1985.

Where single-pass is not the answer

We build every major decoration technology, so the recommendation follows your numbers. If your volumes sit in the 100-to-1,000 parts per hour band with a wide SKU mix, a multi-pass flatbed gives you the same zero-tooling changeover at a fraction of the capital. If your artwork is stable for months on a part with deep recesses or compound curves — or a body-contact medical device — automated pad printing is often still the right call. The honest comparison is in Pad Printing vs Digital Inkjet.