US based Black Dot Technology made its UK debut in March at the Pro2Pack exhibition in London. The company intends to sell its products through established distributors to be appointed within the next few months.
Black Dot Technology’s primary strategy is the use of hot-melt ink to provide a “clean, solvent-free coding solution” for a wide range of packaging materials, primarily cartonboard shipping containers, plastics films and pre-printed or coated cartonboard. The primary target industries are food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, automotive, and many others where products require a bar code or human readable identification code.
The company’s principal product, the Black Dot 200 Series Coder, is said to provide a clean, simple to operate, low energy and safe coding system that can print onto a range of porous and non-porous packages. It heats up to operating temperature in about 10 minutes and can be moved in seconds if a breakdown occurs or the system has to be moved to a different production line.
Other products include the Imaging Module, the IM 100, that houses an integrated printhead and heated reservoir, which are the heart of the technology. The printhead provides a 64 mm band of high resolution printing at speeds up to 40 mpm. The printhead is an all metal, low mass structure that is “easily heated to the required temperature”.
