Tools required to operate pad printing machines
The essential hand tools, fixtures, and consumables every pad-print operator should have within arm's reach of the cell.
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Tech Tips
Practical tips from the EPS shop floor.
Quick, practical answers to the questions EPS service engineers hear most often.
What is the Viscospatula designed to do?
The Viscospatula measures ink viscosity in-line at the press so you stop chasing density with the eyeball.
Read the tip →Symptoms of incorrect pad-printing ink amounts
Too little ink? Washed-out images. Too much? Smearing, edge bleed, halos. Here's how to diagnose by the print.
Read the tip →Can you get hurt operating pad-printing equipment?
Pinch points, pad cleaning, solvent handling, UV exposure. A quick rundown of the four real safety risks on a pad cell.
Read the tip →How do you correct image distortion on a curved part?
Distortion lives in the artwork compensation, not at the pad. Adjust the source image to match the curve, not the other way around.
Read the tip →Symptoms of choosing the wrong pad-printing pad
Image dropout, edge fade, registration drift — all classic signs that the pad shape, durometer, or size doesn't match the part.
Read the tip →Frequently asked pad-printing pad questions
Round-up of the questions our pad room gets every week — durometer, geometry, ink release, life expectancy.
Read the tip →Advantages of tagless printing
Why printing directly on the garment beats sewn-in labels for comfort, cost, and brand consistency.
Read the tip →How do you properly dispose of pad-print ink?
Solvent-based and UV-curable inks have different disposal rules. A short guide so you stay inside the EPA/local hazardous-waste line.
Read the tip →New to in-house pad printing? Start here.
A first-90-days plan: equipment, consumables, training, and the three mistakes to avoid early.
Read the tip →Why am I getting a washed-out printed image?
Ink dryness, pad fatigue, cliché etch depth, or print speed. Walk through the four causes in priority order.
Read the tip →Ink leaking over the edge of the cliché
Almost always a doctor-blade pressure issue, a cliché etch-depth issue, or both. Diagnose in that order.
Read the tip →How long after pre-treatment do you need to start printing?
Surface activation decays. The window between corona/flame/plasma and print is shorter than most operators think.
Read the tip →When should you replace your ceramic rings?
Ceramic ring wear is gradual — and the print quality slip is gradual with it. Three checks to catch the swap point.
Read the tip →Why you should wear UV glasses while inkjet printing
LED-UV lamps produce a narrow but intense spectrum. Standard safety glasses don't cut it — get the rated UV pair.
Read the tip →What happens if your plate is not etched properly?
Under-etched: thin ink film, weak coverage. Over-etched: smearing, halo bleed. Both fix at the plate maker, not the press.
Read the tip →How do you test the depth of an etched cliché on a polymer plate?
A digital depth gauge takes the guesswork out. Target depths for fine line, halftone, and solid coverage.
Read the tip →How do you achieve good color matching with inkjet printing?
A managed ICC profile per substrate, locked against a physical reference. Eyeballing it loses against the brand-color spec.
Read the tip →Let's talk about the XD-070 industrial inkjet printer
Single-pass UV-LED inkjet, direct-to-shape, with in-line corona — what the platform is engineered to do and where it wins.
Read the tip →What are some reasons for poor ink adhesion?
Substrate energy, contamination, ink chemistry mismatch, pre-treatment timing. Four causes, in the order to diagnose them.
Read the tip →Odd-form printing on irregular geometries
When the part has no flat reference, fixturing does more work than pad selection. Where to start when nothing is square.
Read the tip →What can cause your etched plate to fold up?
Inconsistent etching, residual stress, and improper clamping. Three causes, two of them at the plate maker.
Read the tip →What are the reasons a silicone pad would split?
Solvent migration, repeated thermal cycling, cleaning chemistry, or simple age. Identify which to fix the recurrence.
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