Thermal inkjet (TIJ) printing is overwhelmingly an inline technology. The vast majority of TIJ printers are mounted to conveyors, labeling machines, or packaging equipment, applying variable data as products pass the printhead. But there’s a category of applications where that approach simply doesn’t work: large, heavy, or fixed products that can’t easily be moved past a printhead. For those situations, a handheld TIJ printer is often a good solution.
Handheld TIJ printers use the same fundamental technology as their inline counterparts — HP inkjet cartridges, piezo-driven droplet ejection, high-resolution output — but packaged into a portable, battery-powered form that operators can take to wherever the printing needs to happen.
Typical applications include marking chemical drums, timber, plasterboard and other construction materials, pallets, and bulk plastic packaging. Anywhere you need a durable, legible mark on a large or stationary item, a handheld TIJ printer is worth considering.
Two Approaches to the Same Problem
There are two distinct types of handheld TIJ printers, and the difference comes down to who does the moving: the operator or the printhead.
Operator-traversed printers are the more common type. The operator moves the printer across the substrate, and the printhead fires as it travels. A key feature of better-designed printers in this category is an encoder linked to one of the guide rollers, which monitors the speed of movement and adjusts the drop firing rate to maintain consistent print quality regardless of how fast the operator sweeps the unit.
Handheld thermal inkjet printers use the same technology as their inline counterparts, but are portable and can be easily taken to where printing is needed.
These portable handheld printers are often used for marking on products such as: chemical drums, sheetrock and other building products, lumber, pallets and other wooden or plastic packaging materials and much more.
There are two main types of handheld TIJ printers: the most common requires the operator to move the printhead across the item to be marked, and the printhead prints as it moves.
The Markoprint X1Jet Handhold, from Weber Marking Systems (Germany), is a well-regarded example. It’s built around the same X1Jet printhead used in many inline coding installations, a sensible design choice: proven technology, familiar cartridges and consistent ink performance.
The unit is mounted on a Bosch battery handle, with twin rollers that maintain the correct standoff distance from the substrate. Print height is 12.7 mm (0.5 inch), with print runs of up to two meters possible in a single pass. Formats can be loaded via USB memory stick or, with an optional module, over Wi-Fi.
Self-traversing printers take a different approach. The operator positions the unit against the substrate and triggers the print; the printhead then traverses the product automatically. It removes some of the technique required from the operator, which can be an advantage in environments where consistent results matter more than flexibility.
The jetStamp 1025, from Ernst REINER (Germany), is the most widely known product in this category. It prints up to 25.4 mm (one inch) high and around 90 mm (3.5 inches) wide, using TIJ technology with Bluetooth and USB connectivity; formats can also be loaded from a microSD card. Options include an integrated display showing the active format and a built-in barcode scanner for scan-and-print workflows, which is useful in applications where the mark needs to reference a scanned code.
Which type of printer is best?
It depends entirely on the application. Both types are portable, both can use aqueous and solvent-based inks to handle porous and non-porous substrates, and both are suited to marking large, stationary items.
The self-traversing type is arguably more forgiving to operate: align, press, done. The trade-off is print width. At around 90 mm maximum, the jetStamp 1025 can’t match what an operator can cover with a steady sweep of an operator-traversed printer. For large-format marks or longer text strings, the operator-traversed approach gives you more room.
If you’re working in an environment where operators change frequently, or where hand-sweep consistency is hard to guarantee, the self-traversing type has a real advantage. For applications where format size is the priority, the operator-traversed printer wins.
If you’re based in North America and want to explore handheld or inline TIJ printing options, Automated Marking, Inc. (AMI) distributes both the Markoprint X1Jet Handhold and the REINER jetStamp range and can advise on which suits your specific application.
