Semi-Automatic Pad Printing Machine Manufacturer

The pad printer is mainly composed of three parts: pad, ink cup, and pad printing plate. Below is some detailed information on the three parts.

1. What is Pad Printing?

The pad is the device responsible for transferring ink in the pad printer. The pad compresses the ink-filled etching plate to pick up the image. Then, the pad slides on the product and compresses it again to print the image. The pad is made of silicone material. The type of silicone and the hardness of the pad depends on the actual application of the pad printer. Silicone pad printing comes in a variety of shapes and sizes to meet customers’ various printing needs. The most common types are round and rectangular, and pad printing can also be customized according to actual printing needs.

2. What is a Pad Printing Plate?

The image to be printed is etched on the pad printing plate, which also called a cliche. It can be replaced according to different pattern printing requirements. The quality of the pad printing plate and the printed image directly affect the printing effect. Our pad printing plates have excellent performance and can be used in a variety of applications and machine types.

3. What is an Ink Cup?

The ink cup is a mechanism for holding ink in the motorized pad printing machine. The ink cup slides smoothly and quickly during the etching process. Leaving only a small amount of ink during the etching pr.ocess – this printing process is called a doctoring. The main function of the ink cup in the printing process is to store the ink in a sealed manner, and it can also scrape off other excess ink. This is the only way to ensure that the printing quality of the pad printing equipment is always at a good level.

Motorized pad printing machine has 3 main parts to make the pad printer working -silicone pad, ink cup, plate. The plate etched with image, ink cup hold the ink above the plate, and the cup slides make ink leave at the etched position. The pad is a transfer tool which pressed onto ink filled etched area to pick up the image then transfer onto the part.

1. The silicone printing pad of pad printer adds ink to the etching area of the printed steel plate, which marks the beginning of the printing cycle. Some pad printing equipment uses open ink cups, and some use closed ink cups. It can reduce the volatilization speed of ink, and are more environmentally friendly, convenient and safer. The ink viscosity at this time must be moderate. So that the ink can be spread flat on the surface of the transfer printing plate of the electric pad printer. And the can enter the image etching area.
2. The pad printer is able to scrape the ink on the raised part ( blank space) of the plate, and only let the ink enter the etched image area. Since the solvent is volatile, this will cause the ink on the surface in the etching area of the image to be sticker than the ink below.
3. The silicone printing pad uniformly applies pressure to the recessed image area while squeezing out the air. At this time, the viscosity of the surface ink in the etching area of the image is relatively large. So the ink can leave the etched area and adhere to the silicone printing pad.
4. When the pad leaves the printing plate, the solvent in the surface evaporates, so that the image on the pad is easier to transfer to the products.
5. When the printing pad touches the surface of the substrate, the image can be transferred smoothly on the surface of the product. This is because the high viscosity of the ink on the silicone printing pad. In this step, the silicone printing pad may exert a lot of pressure. But the unique shape of the pad and its high elasticity enable the image to contact the substrate in a curved manner of a flat surface. At the same time, it can prevent air existing between the pad and the substrate to ensure that the image is completely transferred to the product.
6. The silicone printing pad leaves the plate, and printing is completed.

Pad printing widely used in many different industries or products.

• Electronic micro components, such as cables, connectors, IC chips, relays, SD card, CD, etc.
• Industrial Buttons and Keys as found on calculators, telephones and computer keyboards, etc.
• Electrical Household Appliances such as iron, VCR , TV, coffee pot s, telephones, etc .
• Large industrial appliance panels. Such as on dishwashers, washing machines and dryers, conditioner, etc.
• Toys such as figurines, dolls, cars, infant bottles, pacifiers, rattles and night lights.
• Advertising and promotional Items like pens, lighters, key chains, USB drivers, watch dial, etc.
• Sporting Goods such as golf balls, baseballs, skateboard wheels, shoes, etc.
• Automotive parts like indicator, press button, etc.
  Ceramic and glass dishes, clay body, biscuit material, etc.
• Other industrial parts like injection or molded parts, safety helmets, tagless garment, bottle caps, etc.

When you have bottles or tubes in hand, you have the ideas of the bottle or tube dimensions, colors, and production output.

1. One color print and small quantity, recommend to uses semi-automatic machines.

• OS-300 print Ø10mm-Ø75mm on bottles and tubes
• OS-400 print Ø10mm-Ø110mm on bottles and tubes
• OS-700 print Ø10mm-Ø200mm on bottles and tubes
• OS-1200 print Ø200mm-Ø350mm on buckets/pails

When print PP, PE, HDPE, LDPE, and Tritan materials, need to surface treating (flame treating or plasma) before printing. And if print UV ink, you will need UV curing after printing.

2. One color print to 6 color and large quantity, recommend to uses fully automaticbottle UV screen printing machines. The automatic machine integrated with flame treating, screen printing and UV curing in one machine. It’s features fast speed for high output and cost saving, especially print multicolor.

• OS-767 series machine, print Ø10mm-Ø100mm on bottles and jars.
• OS-R320 rotary table machine, print Ø20mm-Ø90mm on bottles WITHOUT registration ramp/anchor point in the bottom and soft tubes.
• OS-175 vertical rotary table machine, printØ10mm-Ø75mm on soft tubes, centrifuge tubes and plastic jars, and print ONE color only.
• OS-1000 series machine, print Ø150mm-Ø350mm on plastic pails/buckets from 1 color to 8 color.

Besides above mentioned printing machines, we also have automatic hot stamping solutions, automatic screen printing solutions for flat objects and other customized auto printing solutions.

Installation and Training:

When you first time to buy this kind of bottle printing machine you need our training for proper use and maintenance.

1. We are available to send our experienced technicians to your facility for installation and training. It normally takes one week. And the buyer should cover the round-trip air tickets and accommodations. Or the buyer sends an operator to our factory for three days of training.
   The training is very important for buying new equipment, this will save your hours and improve production efficiency.
2. Machine with 12months Within this period, all the electrical and pneumatic parts can be replaced for free.

Online Service:

We offer 6×15 hours online service.

Monday to Saturday, 8:00 – 23:00, China Standard Time (UTC/GMT+08:00)

The pad printing process has developed rapidly and now become one of the most important printing processes. Pad printers are also widely praised for their excellent printing performance. Among them, the printing pad is made of silicone resin, which is easy to deform and has good ink repellency, so it can adhesive a good transfer image effect. Pad printing can print on uneven surfaces. The printed images include simple patterns and colorful photographs and other forms. The pad printing process is flexible and versatile, and can continuously meet the printing needs of the market. But everything is two-sided, and pad printers also have advantages and limitations.

Advantages of automatic pad printing machine:

Electric pad printers are versatile and can quickly print on almost any material surface. They can print on the surface of special shapes, such as convex, curved, concave, and so forth, which are popular among innovative companies.

Disadvantages of automatic pad printing machine:

It is often difficult to achieve the ideal printing effect when printing larger-sized patterns on curved objects. Even if a specially customized pad is used, the printing effect will be limited by the pressure of the pad and the size of the printing area.

The printing pad is made of silicone. The electric pad printing machine mainly uses the pad to compress the etching area to pick up text or images. And then transfer the text or image ink to the product. Pad printing has now become a very popular printing technique. Common applications include computer keyboards, product Logos, household appliances, and so on. Therefore, the pad printing effect has a great relationship with the quality of the silicone printing pad. So how should we choose pad printing?

• The shape of the silicone printing pad: choose a suitable pad according to the pattern size and product shape to be printed.
• Good wear resistance and ink adhesion performance.
• The printing pad has fine resilience.
• The printing pattern is clear. (you can test the pad before buying.)

In this part, we will talk about ink mixing, which is a basic but crucial step to achieve a high-quality printing effect. If ink mixing fails, the whole printing process will make you disappointed. At the same time, it will lead to the loss of production, time and energy.

Before printing, you should choose the right pad printing equipment. Including unlined mixing cups, precise electronic scale and mixing sticks. Without these pad printing equipment, ink mixing will be a tough job, leading to a poor printing effect.

Pad Printing Ink Mixing Steps:

• Zero the electronic scale and make sure it is on a flat surface.
• Add ink to a mixing cup. Because ink will not flow well in a mixing cup once mixed, you should try to add more than 40 grams of ink.
• Add an appropriate hardener in accordance with your ink type. Some ink manufacturers will give you some guidance for reference.
• Mix your printing ink and hardener completely. Please notice the pot life of mixed ink.
• Then add solvent at an appropriate ratio drip by drip, until a working viscosity is achieved. (Note: Don’t add all the solvent at one time in case of over-thinning ink.
• Pour the mixed ink into an ink cup of an electric pad printing machine.

If you refer to these basic steps of printing ink mixing, it will help you to improve your printing effect.