Leibinger provides specialist ink for cable marking

Industrial Solutions

The marking of strands, cables, sheathed cables or even pipes, hoses and profiles made of soft PVC in a wear resistant manner presents a challenge to the cable and extrusion industry. An ink developed by printer specialist Leibinger is resistant to plasticisers and also prevents the transfer of printing ink to neighbouring cables.

To mark materials reliably, two components need to mesh like the gears of a well oiled machine: printer technology and printer ink. Which is why, in contrast to various other players in this market, Leibinger develops and produces its own inks. These include a special black ink for the printing of extruded products.

Extruded products such as cables, sheathed cables, hoses, pipes or profiles primarily comprise polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Depending on their application, they are mixed with plasticisers, also known as ’softeners’. After production, the printed cables are usually coiled onto reels. Due to ‘plasticiser migration’, an imprint or ‘transfer print’ may appear on the neighbouring cable when it is being unwound at a later date. To prevent this, Leibinger has a specialist ink for use on PVC.

The company has developed a special ink for cable marking and metre marking of extruded goods, one that adheres reliably to PVC materials. This ink is resistant to plasticisers which means it can prevent the effect described above of accidental transfer prints. With a Blue Wool Scale (BWS) ranking of 8, it also possesses exceptional UV stability. This is particularly important, to name just one example, when used on window spacers. In addition, this ink dries very rapidly which makes it ideally suited to high speed applications.