Pros & Cons: Pad Printing in a Clean Room Environment

Pad printing is a fantastic, fast, quick-drying process allowing for adjustment to ink coverage, density and evaporation each step along the way. It is also vulnerable to the changing conditions in the environment surrounding your pad printing area. You may find it beneficial to consider setting up a clean room to protect your jobs from […]

Reasons to Consider a Servo-Driven Pad Printer

While a programmable servo-driven pad printer will cost more than comparable electro-pneumatic models, they provide the highest degree of accuracy, control, adaptability and flexibility in a more compact area, and they include additional valuable features. The improved servo-driven technology allows engineers to choose linear motion devices that: provide the highest degree of accuracy increase speeds […]

Save on Pad Printing Ink!

Our customers have told us many times how frustrated they are with the amount of pad printing ink they have to throw out at the end of the day. Well we heard you and designed a handy little device to help utilize those small volumes of the ink mixed in the cups. Plus when the […]

The Skinny on Plate Types

Engineered Printing Solutions reps often hear the question “what plate type should I use?” The answer is standard for pad printing: What is the intended application How detailed is the artwork (fine lines? large solid areas?) What are the environment’s conditions (dusty? flying debris?) What is the thickness or opacity of ink required? What is the […]

Pad Print Thinners and Hardeners

Pad printing’s smooth transfer of an image from the inked cliché to the subtrates is facilitated by additives used in the ink’s mix. Pad Print thinners and hardeners are additives critical in handling ink adjustments for better adhesion and extending image life. Thinners Transferring pad printing inks requires that a percentage of thinner be mixed […]

Ink Viscosity and Seasonal Adjustments

Pad printing is a thin film process. It starts with an etch depth in the cliché of approx. 25-75 microns and only a fraction of that ink film is picked up by the pad. Of the wet ink, 50% is a solvent that evaporates leaving only a 5 micron dry ink deposit. You can easily […]

Viscospatula to the Rescue!

Custom decorators and product marking professionals have some common challenges, and one of them is print run consistency. Getting their ink to perform in the same way with the same quality from job to job, regardless of who is mixing the ink, has a better chance of success with some controls in place. Ink series’ […]

Pad Printing Pads: Is Pad Size Important?

Size minimizes distortion An important variable to consider in quality pad printing is the pad size, especially as it relates to the image size. In pad printing, the larger the pad size used, the less the image is likely to distort in the printing process. Pad size is measured in length, width and height without […]

All Fired Up: Pad Printing Glassware

Most glassware has some kind of discernible shape. Logically, pad printing emerges as a natural choice in glass decorating and printing. The more complex the shape, the more suitable pad printing becomes as a decorating process. With the right tooling, multicolor prints, special-effects inks, and even 360 degree wrap-of-image-around-circumference are possible. Automated parts-handling options can […]

Print Pad Durometer or Hardness – Same Thing

Albert F. Shore developed the measurement device called a durometer in the 1920s to measure material hardness. As a result of the Shore ratings, the terms hardness and durometer became interchangeable. Many pad print pad manufacturers color code the standard durometers by adding pigment to the silicone itself or by coloring the pad base. The […]