Cicogres sees quantifiable benefits from Xaar 1003 upgrade

IndPrint

At the heart of ceramic tile manufacturer Cicogres, is a philosophy of continuous innovation and improvement in order to provide the best product design and quality for its customers. Company owner, Israel Sanchez and his team at Cicogres have always believed that digital inkjet technology enables the company to produce differentiated products with a particular focus on product quality and attention to every detail.

Not long after the Xaar 1003 was launched, Cicogres, which had been using Xaar printheads for around eight years, opted to upgrade its tile decoration machine in order to take advantage of improved print quality and uptime.

Technical director Ricardo Baldayo, who made the decision to upgrade, explains the main benefits that the company has seen: ‘When we upgraded we could very quickly see the improvements delivered by the Xaar 1003. You can really notice the improvements in print quality over the Xaar 1002. There is a huge difference between the two printheads.’

Since the move to Xaar 1003 printheads, Cicogres has also seen other advantages. ‘Line speed has increased because we only need to do routine maintenance when the line is stopped for other reasons,’ commented Ricardo. ‘In terms of performance, we see that this printhead is faster than previous printheads. And because we don’t need to adjust the printheads or clean them, production uptime has increased as well as print quality.’

The benefits seen by Cicogres are the result of a number of innovations introduced with the Xaar 1003. These include XaarGuard which provides mechanical protection to the nozzle which dramatically reduces the frequency of maintenance to once per shift or less. Another improvement is the use of Tuned Actuator Manufacturing which ensures actuator performance in each printhead is optimised; this in turn achieves uniform print quality across all printheads in a print bar, and at different greyscale levels.

As with its predecessors, the 1003 family of printheads combines Xaar’s TF Technology with Hybrid Side Shooter architecture so that ink is recirculated directly past the back of the nozzle during drop ejection at the highest flow rates in the industry. This ensures that the printhead operates reliably even in the harshest industrial environments. Ink is in constant circulation, preventing sedimentation and subsequent blocking of the nozzles when jetting.

The Xaar 1003C has been designed to enable tile manufacturers using either the 1001C or Xaar 1002C printheads to easily upgrade their systems due to it being fully backward compatible. Delivering both improved print quality and production uptime, the 1003C is the ideal choice for tile manufacturers seeking to deliver a greater level of manufacturing performance.