Fine Tubes Imaje S4+ inkjets have been chosen by Fine Tubes, a UK manufacturer of high-tech seamless metal tubing, to upgrade the coding of its stainless-steel, nickel-alloy and titanium tubes. Manufactured in a range of sizes, from 0.1 to 50.8mm outside diameter, the tubes are used in a wide range of demanding applications in the aerospace, oil and gas, nuclear, medical, semiconductor and sports equipment industries. One of Fine Tubes’ more unusual orders was for the frame tubes for the UK entry in the world human powered vehicle land speed record competition, the Blueyonder Challenge. With a range of over 14,000 variations, accurate and legible coding is essential and all tubes larger than 3mm diameter are marked with size, material, specification, inspection number, melt temperature and customer name, plus, in some cases, additional customer specified data. Printing all of this data, reliably and legibly, onto a 3mm diameter metal tube is a challenge that the S4+ fitted with the ‘G’ printhead is able to meet easily. The ‘G’ printhead can print characters as small as 2mm in up to four lines. Maximum flexibility is provided by the S4’s ability to emphasise part of the coding by printing from one to four lines of type in different size characters in a single pass. Fine Tubes first installed Imaje inkjets 15 years ago to replace slug and wheel coders to improve print quality and reduce set-up time.
