Ticket to Success
High Speed printing of variable data for parking tickets and airline luggage tickets
Founded over 20 years ago, Ultra is a customer-focused innovative company, working in the printing and graphics industry, and it is HSA’s distributor in Turkey.
Ultra’s customer, one of the biggest label producers in Istanbul, realised that the Zebra ribbon printer they were using was outdated and could not keep up with demand. The system used was only able to print 1,000 variable data pieces per hour.
The customer asked Ultra to compare the leading products on the market and identify a replacement to be installed on their Rotoflex label slitter, rewind & inspection machine.
The initial requirements were:
- Printing variable data for parking and airline luggage tickets
- Self-adhesive labels 40 to 45 mm wide
- Print resolution 300 x 300 at 150 meters per min
- Data loading from Excel files
- High reliability
- Compatible with evolving technologies
- Long term support
Customised solution
Ultra contacted HSA Systems to create the necessary system. HSA Systems designed a custom system to meet the customer’s needs, consisting of nine 12.7 mm single-pen printheads controlled by three HSAJET® CBF boards installed in an industrial PC.
The system is mounted directly on the Rotoflex, with its own encoder and print sensor in one stand-alone efficient system, with no other hardware or software necessary.
The data for the customer is run directly from Excel files, supplied on a USB stick. The system is also supplied with Ethernet and RS232 communications, making a direct connection from central data sources available for the customer in the future.
The printing solutions from HSA Systems enhanced the production line with a 1000% increase in productivity
Result: 10,000 variable data impressions per minute
Comparing the 1,000 variable data impressions per hour from the old system against the new system, running at speeds of up to 10,000 per minute, the HSAJET® installation has provided significant production growth; a job that used to take hours is now taking a few minutes to complete.
Also the savings and commercial success does not stop there because the system consumables are significantly less expensive than the thermal ribbons used by the Zebra printers.
The customer adapted so easily to the flexibility, reliability and user friendliness of the new HSAJET® system; it is also now being integrated for different uses with folding, slitting and collating machines.
The customer has different types of jobs, which include both vertical and horizontal variable data. With the new HSAJET® system, the customer’s scope for variable printing has been broadened to a possible maximum speed of 306 m/min (with a 150x300 DPI resolution) or the maximum resolution of 600x600 DPI (at 36 m/min).
Print of variable data for parking and airline luggage tickets
TECHNICAL INFO
- 1 x RPC - Rack style Printer controller
- 3 x HSAJET® Controller Boards for HP
- 9 x HSAJET® 1-pen Printheads for HP
- Total print height 8 x 12.7 mm = 101.6 mm / 4"
OUTPUT
- 150x300 DPI at 306 m/min
- 600x600 DPI at 36 m/min