Method and device for inkjet printing on containers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9802424-B2
Application number	US-201514924378-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 27, 2015
Priority date	Nov 18, 2014
Publication date	Oct 31, 2017
Grant date	Oct 31, 2017

Abstract

In a method and a device for inkjet printing on containers, at least a first and a second subprint complementing each other in the printing direction so as to form a print image are joined. The first subprint is printed starting from a connection area or up to a connection area. Subsequently, the second subprint is printed with a feed towards the connection area such that the first and second subprints interleavingly overlap in the connection area. This allows a joining of subprints with unobtrusive transitions even in the case of dimensional tolerances and complicated cross-sections of the respective container.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for inkjet printing on containers, comprising the steps of joining at least a first and a second subprint complementing each other in the printing direction so as to form a print image,
wherein the first subprint is printed first starting from a connection area or up to a connection area and the second subprint is printed subsequently with a feed towards the connection area such that the first and second subprints interleavingly overlap in the connection area,
wherein the first and second subprint do not adjoin one another in the connection area along a straight line extending transversely to the printing direction, but the connection area is formed in an intermeshing manner distributing image contents of the first and second subprint in a gear tooth configuration, and
wherein the printing direction runs laterally about a main axis of the containers, and the first and second subprint interleavingly overlap in a circumferential direction of the containers.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the connection area covers a circumferential arc segment whose length comprises 5 to 50 pixels of the print image.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the containers are printed on one of at least over their full circumference, over a print area of at least 362°, or over a print area of at least 365°.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the containers are rotated about their own axis in front of at least one print head.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein an end area of the second subprint adjoins a starting area of the first subprint.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein, for each container, at least two connection areas distributed around the container in a circumferential direction are produced simultaneously.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein at least two components of a color model are printed one on top of the other such that connection areas of different components are displaced relative to one another in the printing direction.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein image contents of a digital master copy comprised in the first and/or second subprint are distributed by means of an image processing algorithm to pixel patterns complementing one another in the connection area so as to form a print image.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein, in addition, at least a third and a fourth subprint are joined to the first and second subprints in a direction transversely to the printing direction such that the respective adjacent subprints interleavingly overlap in the associated connection areas.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the containers ( 18 ) are specially shaped bottles.

11. The method according to claim 10 , wherein the specially shaped bottles have a curved cross-section in at least one circumferential subarea of their sidewall to be printed on.

12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the curved cross-section has a varying radius of curvature.

13. A device for executing the method according to claim 1 , comprising at least one print head, at least one rotatable support for a container, and a control unit for controlling the print head and the support such that, in the connection area, the first and second subprints can be printed onto the container in an interleaving fashion.

14. The device according to claim 13 , comprising at least two print heads, which are displaced relative to one another in the printing direction and which are coordinated such that they can be used for composing a print image from subprints that interleave in the printing direction.

15. The method according to claim 1 wherein the connection area covers a circumferential arc segment whose length comprises 10 to 30 pixels of the print image.

16. A method for inkjet printing on containers, comprising the steps of joining at least a first and a second subprint complementing each other in the printing direction so as to form a print image,
wherein the first subprint is printed first starting from a connection area or up to a connection area and the second subprint is printed subsequently with a feed towards the connection area such that the first and second subprints interleavingly overlap in the connection area,
wherein the first and second subprint do not adjoin one another in the connection area along a straight line extending transversely to the printing direction, but the connection area is formed in at least one of an intermeshing and a mosaic-like manner distributing image contents of the first and second subprint,
wherein the first and second subprint are printed by different print heads, and
wherein one print head ejects a suitable number of subdroplets of a pixel in the connection area, and another print head ejects the rest of the subdroplets of the respective pixel.

Assignees

• Krones Ag

Inventors

• Sonnauer Andreas

Classifications

• B41J3/4073 Primary

  Printing on three-dimensional objects not being in sheet or web form, e.g. spherical or cubic objects (B41J3/283, B41J3/286 take precedence; building up a 3D object using individual droplets from jetting heads B29C64/112) · CPC title

• B41J2/2132

  Print quality control characterised by dot disposition, e.g. for reducing white stripes or banding (methods for local corrections by dot omission, image edge enhancement, or multi-pass mask selection G06K15/102; colour conversion H04N1/40) · CPC title

• B41J2/01

  Ink jet · CPC title

• B41J3/40733

  Printing on cylindrical or rotationally symmetrical objects, e. g. on bottles · CPC title

• B41J3/407 Primary

  for marking on special material · CPC title