Direct-to-object printing has changed more in the last five years than in the previous twenty. Here's what we've learned shipping production cells across packaging, medical, industrial, and sporting goods.
Advances in direct-to-object printing and single-pass UV inkjet technology allow manufacturers to add branding, serialization, traceability information and product identification directly onto pharmaceutical closures while maintaining production efficiency.
Read →Polymer or steel, single or double exposure — what actually decides the choice, and why the machine you run changes the answer.
Read →Drinkware is designed first for function, not decoration. The material, pretreatment and automation realities that decide whether direct-to-shape printing will actually work on your parts.
Read →Pretreatment prepares a product’s surface so ink wets out evenly and bonds reliably. Here’s how surface energy, contamination and method choice — flame, plasma, corona — drive print quality and adhesion in direct-to-object production.
Read →Five criteria — quality, throughput, size, substrate, color count — and how each one bends the recommendation toward single-pass or multi-pass.
Read →The real cost is labor. The right question for DTO isn't whether the printer hits quality — it's how quickly automation engineers labor out of the cell.
Read →The 100th single-pass milestone, marked in Munich. Why the print engine was never the product — and what the next 100 will look like.
Read →Curves, recesses, surface energy, and the robotics that handle them. A primer on how DTO works on real industrial parts.
Read →The print mechanism is no longer the bottleneck. Peripheral systems — part handling, orientation, inspection — are. Notes from Printing United 2025.
Read →Print consultant first, equipment vendor second. How EPS chooses between analog and digital based on the application — not the catalog.
Read →Frit inks vs acrylic inks for decorating glass — kiln-fired durability and dishwasher-safe finishes.
Read →Two methods of adding metallic finishes to packaging. One uses a die; the other uses UV adhesive jetted by an inkjet head.
Read →No contact, no clichés, no setup, variable data, less waste, leaner inventory. The six-line case for switching to inkjet.
Read →Continuous inkjet (CIJ) sprays a constant stream and recirculates the excess. Drop-on-demand (DOD) jets ink only when needed. Here's why EPS picks DOD.
Read →Why EPS designs every machine from a blank sheet — and the four diagnostic questions that drive every quote.
Read →Bespoke means "made for a particular customer or user." Here's what that looks like on the EPS shop floor.
Read →Drinkware to automotive trim, light bulbs to consumer packaging. DTO eliminates the label and shortens the supply chain.
Read →A specialized KE13-based catheter pad printer for Zeus — built to support a multimillion-dollar capacity expansion.
Read →Manufacturers are bringing secondary decoration in-house. Why digital inkjet earns its place when the supply chain comes home.
Read →Overt, covert, forensic. Three tiers of brand-protection security features — and what each one means for pharma and consumer goods.
Read →Interview with Kevin Metcalfe, EPS Applications Engineer. How a custom inkjet build comes together from sample to FAT.
Read →Five decision factors — quality, throughput, part size, substrate, color count — that pick the platform.
Read →If your current line yields $1/part at 800/hr and a new inkjet system yields $3/part at 1,200/hr, the math runs to $5.6M/year.
Read →When the FDA approved Moderna to pack 14 doses per vial instead of 10, US vaccine capacity rose 20%. Find the constraint; don't just add machines.
Read →A 100-year-old family business cuts lead time from two days to two hours by converting from hot-foil stamping to cold-foil digital.
Read →A Catalan automation firm partnered with EPS to print on wood blocks at production speed — XD-70 tailored to spec.
Read →Substrate prep, cleaning protocols, storage practices. How to push a pad past 100,000 impressions.
Read →Durometer = hardness. Albert Shore named it in the 1920s. Here's the color-code chart pad makers use and how to pick the right pad for the part.
Read →One customer ran 250,000 cycles per pad using EPS's rotation method — saving $12K/year. The cheapest pad is the one you don't replace.
Read →Two advantages of servo over pneumatic: speed and recipe-driven flexibility. When the hybrid configuration makes sense.
Read →EPS's Ink Saver Ring fits inside sealed ink cups, agitates ink across the cliché, and keeps print quality even when the ink volume drops below 25 g.
Read →Adhesion is ink that sticks to a known specification. An ink that bonds to one PP product may not bond to another. Where the work begins.
Read →Plasma, corona, flame, chemical primer. Four ways to lift the surface energy of polyolefin substrates so the ink can bond.
Read →Operator handling, mold release residue, and plasticizer bloom defeat adhesion long after the ink is right. Four hidden causes to chase.
Read →Four diagnostics — growth constraint, ROI, labor costs, strategic expansion — that say it's time to automate.
Read →A widget maker has a $350K decision. The happy ending: $300K profit boost, 14 new hires. The sad ending: shutdown, supply-chain casualties.
Read →Going from a 4-second to a 3-second cycle compounds across shifts and years. Operator loading, not the printer, is usually the constraint.
Read →5–8% of world trade is counterfeit. 5–7% of medicines are fake. PhotoSecure SmartDye + DNA Matrix taggants ride on the variable-data print.
Read →800+ vaping illnesses, 8 deaths — linked to black-market THC cartridges. Industrial inkjet's QR + variable data answer the cannabis-market security gap.
Read →Yes. Size the pad 10–20% larger than the image — and learn when to switch to hollow, dual-hardness, or inflatable pads.
Read →The wrong cup material contaminates the ink. Four to avoid, two to use, and how to test the unknown.
Read →In-mold automotive decoration on the KP-08, plus a plastic injection molder cutting changeover from 45 minutes to seconds with industrial inkjet.
Read →Pad size, shape, hardness, and environment. Four variables that turn a silicone rubber blob into a precision tool.
Read →Ergonomics is the science of work — workplace, operator, equipment. How to evaluate each on a print cell.
Read →Reflective substrates bounce UV back into the printhead. Five preventative measures — dark fixtures, low UV power, flat substrates, regular nozzle checks.
Read →A customized KP05 prints eight pieces per stroke. Bowl feeder upstream, infrared drying downstream — high-volume production with minimal operator involvement.
Read →Right cup, right scale, right ratio. Seven rules for ink mixing that protect print quality and production schedules.
Read →Low-surface-energy polyolefins need pretreatment. Four options — special inks, chemical wiping, flame, corona/plasma — and the trade-offs.
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