TIJ COMES OF AGE

Thermal ink jet (TIJ) is emerging as an affordable and practical coding option for food and other FMCG manufacturers, on the back of game-changing ink technology advancements and falling machine prices.

Over a decade has passed since Thermal Ink Jet (TIJ) made its foray as an industrial coding technology, with the ultimate aim of usurping Continuous Ink Jet (CIJ) in many applications.

Early TIJ systems were essentially industrial versions of Hewlett Packard (HP) office printers that used standard water-based ink cartridges. With a price tag in the region of £6,000, they were expensive, and they also had considerable limitations, in that they couldn’t accommodate the solvent inks needed to print on non-porous surfaces.