Machines handle changing code dates, prices
market Markem has introduced two machines that transfer date coding
using a thermal process.
The two models in the company's new SmartDate 5 series of bar code printers can be used for flexible packaging materials used by the snack food, confectionary, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, bakedfoods and frozen foods industries, the company stated this week. The machines are designed for speed on the processing line.
While the primary application of the SmartDate 5 models are the printing if date codes, they also can handle faster applications where the printed data changes on each package, such as price,weight or address.
The SmartDate 5 models can be re-configured from intermittent or continuous mode in under five minutes. The SmartDate 5s coder features a "shuttle" technology to achieve high print speedsat up to 1800 mm/second, making it the world's fastest, highest performance printer, the company claims.
This makes them ideal for use on bagging machines with rapidly changing speeds, Markem stated.
The coders can be used with most VFFS machines, HFFS machines, flow wrappers, label applicators and cartoning machines, the company stated.
The machines use motor technology and other features to cut down on ribbon consumption and waste by up to 66 per cent. Codes can be managed through a control box containing a four-linegraphic display. This allows codes to be set up online.
The control box can also be used separately as a portable control system for designing images. The machine supports non-Roman character sets, allowing coding in Arabic, Greek, Cyrilli and Kanji.
