By Melissa Donovan
Customer demands continue to evolve in the direct to object (DTO) space. Expectations like printing beyond flat, uniform surfaces to curved, contoured, uneven, textured, and tiered items are commonplace. Advances in printhead design, ink chemistry, software, and sensing technologies address applications where a larger printhead gap is required.
The September issue of Industrial Print magazine discusses this topic in detail. Vendors from the article information about their portfolios and how they offer increased distances between the printed object and printhead.
DPI Laboratory’s Catalyst print driver software maintains different alignment files for different printer configurations. For example, it typically aligns its Epson 3200-based systems to 1.7 to two millimeters (mm) from the printhead. The Catalyst VisionAI system can use either break beam technology or have the height programmed manually for known material thicknesses. The most important factor in the VisionAI setup is that the system scan and print from the same height—so the system places the image properly on the print media.
Engineered Printing Solutions’ (EPS) XD-360 printer offers full 360 degrees cylindrical decoration in one pass. 5,000 parts per hour for bottles, tubes, and round containers, thousands of golf balls per hour. It allows product/object height from 25 to 350 mm.
Epson America, Inc.’s SureColor V4000 flatbed printer brings the power of UV printing to DTO production and a range of substrates. Three PrecisionCore Micro TFP printheads, object-printable height up to 7.8 inches, and an intuitive media setup help ensure high productivity and ease of use. The SureColor V4000 features a maximum print area of 27.5×38.5 inches on an extensive range of materials, making it the ideal choice for signage, photo and fine art, and promotional items such as keychains, golf balls, and pens.
Inkcups offers a range of DTO UV inkjet solutions for cylindrical, flat, and irregularly shaped products. The X5-T High Throw accommodates products up to 500 mm in height and utilizes Inkcups High Throw technology to maintain print quality at significantly greater printhead-to-object distances than conventional UV inkjet systems. This allows the printer to accommodate substantial height variation, print around curves and contours with up to 25 percent wrap, and reliably decorate products that would otherwise be difficult to print digitally, including handled mugs and tumblers, coolers, sporting goods, and industrial components. The Helix High Throw UV Cylindrical Printer brings High Throw capabilities to rotary DTO printing. This system is designed to handle height variations of up to 15 mm while producing seamless 360 degree graphics on cylindrical and conical products, including stepped drinkware, vessels with handle attachment posts, plant pots, and pet bowls.
Innovative Digital Systems (IDS) offers high-gap machines like the RevPro 360 cylindrical printer and the Prisma Z-Max Pro flatbed printer. They provide crisp, clear, photorealistic images on some of the most challenging shapes. With a printhead distance of ten to 12 mm, decorators are able to provide more product offerings at the quality today’s customers have grown to expect. High gap printing with IDS does not require operators to do anything differently other than selecting your print profile of choice. When building profiles, just properly map the dynamic contours of complex shapes in building your print templates.
INX International Ink Co. offers the INX CP800 DTO inkjet proofing system, which enables graphic designers, printing professionals, and industrial businesses to easily and efficiently produce a single digital proof or dozens for promotional purposes or even hundreds for events and marketing tests. It is designed to print on two-piece cans, bottles, or other cylindrical objects using four colors, white ink, and spot high-thickness varnish.
Koenig & Bauer Kammann (US) Inc.’s K15 family is a multifunctional machine platform with six to 30 freely configurable work stations for all decoration processes. For example, the K15 S flexibly and accurately prints any item shape—round, oval, square, flat and with a handle—in the highest quality. The flexible handling system designed to transport upright and horizontal article allows for the shortest possible changeover times. The newly developed bottom camera register system aligns the articles accurately by utilizing any unique marking on the bottle of the article.
Mimaki USA, Inc. developed Long Distance (LD) print profiles that allow operators to print at increased printhead gaps while maintaining high image quality. At Mimaki, LD1, LD2, and LD3 profiles are designed for different printhead gap ranges from 2.5 to then mm. There is a droplet size trade off between LD1 and LD2 without sacrificing production speed, but LD2 supports a higher print surface printhead gap range of up to 6.5 mm. LD3 extends the capacity even further allowing fine line printing with up to a ten mm printhead gap. On the UJF-7151 plusII e, LD3 mode supports printhead gaps up to ten mm, which helps expand the range of printable applications. For example, on a regulation golf ball, LD3 mode allows for a printable area up to approximately 1.34 inches wide, which is about 80 percent of the ball’s 1.68-inch diameter. That gives decorators a much larger usable logo area while still maintaining clear print quality on a highly curved surface.
Mutoh America, Inc. XpertJet 661UF is a 19.02×23.3-inch printer that printers directly on a variety of substrates up to 5.91 inches thick. It features an automatic table height adjustment and vacuum table.
Roland DGA VersaStudio BD Series desktop UV flatbed printers can print on substrates/objects up to four inches high. VersaObject MO Series UV benchtop flatbed printers can print on substrates/objects up to eight inches high. VersaObject LO-640 and CO-300i large format UV flatbed printers can print on substrates/objects up to 9.5 inches high. The EU-1000MF High-Volume UV flatbed printer prints on substrates/objects up to 3.74 inches high.
Xaar’s role in DTO is to enable OEM partners with printheads and core inkjet technologies used in direct-to-shape and product-printing systems. Its technology has supported cylindrical object printing systems such as EPS’ single-pass inkjet printers, developed for direct-to-shape decoration on glass, metal, and plastic containers, and decorative packaging applications developed with partners such as Kammann and Marabu.
Sep2026, Industrial Print Magazine
