Episode 8 - Innovation in Inkjet
Host Marcus Timson of FuturePrint is joined by Clayton Sampson of Cyan-Tec, Didier Rousseau of Kelenn Tech, and Keith Kenny of Xaar for a conversation on how far industrial inkjet has come since the technology first started making promises about decorative surfaces over a decade ago, and where it's genuinely heading next.
The panel traces what's actually changed: print head robustness has caught up across the industry, ink systems and fluids have matured, and integration and automation have made inkjet dramatically easier to adopt than it once was. Didier talks through Kelenn's move into structural printed electronics and camera-based motion measurement that replaces traditional encoders, while Keith describes Xaar's work on ultra-high viscosity print heads, technology that's now opening up applications like coating batteries and even painting cars, uses that would have sounded implausible a few years ago. Clayton brings the integrator's view, describing Cyan-Tec's growing use of robotics for direct-to-shape printing on everything from running shoes to aerospace components, and why the term "inkjet" itself often undersells what the technology can now do.
The conversation also gets refreshingly honest about failure: why good inkjet projects rarely fail on the production floor itself, because by then it's too late, and instead fail earlier, in the chemistry, the qualification process, or an environment that wasn't properly assessed beforehand, including one memorable case of a factory floor that vibrated just enough to ruin the print quality. The panel discusses which analog processes look most vulnerable to inkjet over the next five years, with pad printing and screen printing high on that list, and closes with a shared view that industrial inkjet will only reach its full potential once people stop thinking of it as printing at all, and start understanding it as precision deposition of virtually any functional fluid.
Find out more about FuturePrint: https://www.futureprint.tech
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/futureprint-tech/
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/futureprint-podcast/id1567194406
