A quiet week for launches and a loud one for Las Vegas — most of the trade spent it lining up PRINTING United previews. But three genuine products landed, and one of them is a bench tester for printheads. Digital Sign Technologies showed a modular multi-head tester and a ten-head cleaner, Videojet launched a pigmented-ink coder built around long service intervals, and Sun Chemical put out two digital primers for HP Indigo. Hanrun Paper bundled DTF, sublimation and UV into a single line, Canon's thINK Ahead drew its biggest crowd in twelve years, and two more established shops changed hands.
Printhead Tools · August 14
Digital Sign Technologies brings a modular multi-head printhead tester to LOUPE Americas
Digital Sign Technologies unveiled the PHT-M, a modular multi-head Print Head Tester on which the operator swaps printhead modules so a single device can test several head types. The base PHT evaluates nozzle health in about three minutes, using standard photo paper and the user’s own ink, and can assess a head after cleaning, after storage, or straight out of the box. Alongside it the company showed the Print Head Doctor PHD18, which cleans up to ten printheads simultaneously where the PHD17 handles one or two, plus a new AI-powered compact Ink Tester for checking ink and printhead compatibility. Supported head brands and availability dates were not disclosed.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: This is the whole argument of this newsletter in a single product. A three-minute nozzle check before you install tells you whether a head is worth fitting; the same check after cleaning tells you whether the clean actually worked, or whether you are about to lose a day finding out it did not. Anyone who has fitted a “good” used head and spent an afternoon discovering otherwise already knows why bench-testing before installation pays for itself.
Epson DX5 eco-solvent head — the kind of part worth proving on a bench before it goes anywhere near a carriage.
Industrial Inkjet · August 13
Videojet launches the 1880 C for pigmented-ink coding
Videojet introduced the 1880 C continuous inkjet printer, built specifically around pigmented inks for coding on beverage cans, personal care packaging, industrial products and flexible materials. The headline claims are a main filter life of up to 8,000 operating hours, automatic recovery after up to four weeks of shutdown with no manual intervention, and a long-life core that does not require annual replacement — the last being the explicit differentiator against traditional pigmented CIJ.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: Pigmented ink is hard on any jetting system, because the pigment settles out and abrades on its way through. A claim of “recovers automatically after four weeks idle” is really a claim about ink not drying and blocking in the nozzle — the same failure that kills a wide-format head over a long weekend. Different machine, identical lesson: idle time, not printing time, is what finishes most heads.
Inks · August 11
Sun Chemical launches SunEvo digital primers for HP Indigo
Sun Chemical unveiled two digital primers for HP Indigo presses: SunEvo Seam-Thru and SunEvo General Purpose. Seam-Thru allows full-width priming while keeping shrink sleeves seamable, which removes the need for lane rollers and maximises usable substrate width. The two primers are fully interchangeable via a simple water wash cycle, letting a converter move between shrink-sleeve and lamination work without a full changeover, and Sun Chemical claims extended blanket life from eliminating lane-roller voids.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: Primer sits upstream of the imaging engine, but it decides whether ink stays where you put it. The inkjet equivalent works the same way: get the substrate’s surface energy wrong and you end up chasing the symptom at the printhead — heavier ink loads, more purging, more wiping, shorter head life — when the actual fix was in the pre-treat.
Textile & Garment · August 11
Hanrun Paper pushes an integrated DTF, sublimation and UV line
Hanrun Paper introduced what it describes as an integrated production ecosystem rather than a set of standalone machines, spanning DTF, sublimation and UV. Named hardware includes the Super A-808 DTF printer, an automatic powder shaking and recycling system, an XY intelligent cutting machine and a six-station automatic heat press, plus UV models UV-H6090S, UV-H1612 and UV-H9060. On consumables there is an anti-sublimation white powder for polyester and Hi-Sticky Sublimation Paper with an 8–9 g/m² functional coating and a claimed transfer efficiency above 95%. No printhead specifications or availability dates were given.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: DTF is the most maintenance-hungry process most shops run. White ink settles if it is not circulated, adhesive powder goes airborne and finds the carriage, and the heads work in that environment every shift. If you are buying into a DTF line, budget capping stations, dampers and wipers as a running cost rather than as spares — on DTF they are consumables in everything but name.
Epson I3200 / I1600 capping unit — on a DTF machine this is a wear part, not a spare.
Production Inkjet · August 13
Canon’s thINK Ahead draws a record crowd; varioPRESS iV7 makes its US debut
The thINK Forum and Canon reported a record thINK Ahead 2026, with more than 500 production inkjet customers, partners and industry leaders gathering in Boca Raton — the largest attendance in the event’s twelve-year history. The one press named in the recap is the Canon varioPRESS iV7, a B2+ sheetfed inkjet press that made its US debut with a live demonstration following its European debut in Venlo; US availability is anticipated in the first half of 2027. thINK Ahead 2027 is set for July 26–28.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: A B2+ sheetfed inkjet press is a wall of heads firing in a single pass, and single-pass architecture is unforgiving — there is no second pass to hide a weak nozzle behind. That is why this class of press leans so heavily on nozzle-out detection and redundancy, and why on these machines head health is tracked as a production metric rather than left to the maintenance log.
Kyocera KJ4B-QA — a 600 dpi water-based head of the type that fills the bars on high-speed production inkjet.
Business · August 11–12
FASTSIGNS converts two New York institutions; CPS Cards joins SPC
FASTSIGNS added three centres in New York City, two of them conversions of long-established local businesses: One Stop Blueprinting, a 50-year-plus family blueprinting firm serving the construction trade with sites in Greenpoint and South Brooklyn, and Alpina Printing Services, a second-generation business on Manhattan’s 28th Street. Area developer Greg Carafello has taken the city from two locations to ten since 2017. Separately, Graphic Arts Advisors confirmed it acted as exclusive sell-side adviser on the combination of CPS Cards of Glendale Heights, Illinois with Niles-based Specialty Print Communications; terms were not disclosed, and the Glendale Heights plant remains fully staffed.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: Both items are the same story told from different ends — established shops folding into larger networks. What follows is always a mixed equipment fleet under one roof. The operators who handle it well inventory the heads and wear parts across every machine early, so the press that arrived with the acquisition does not turn into the one nobody in the building can service.
Whatever equipment you run — or are thinking about running next — the printhead is the heart of it. If you ever need a replacement head or a hard-to-find component, browse our full range of printheads and printer spare parts and accessories — our team is always happy to help you find the right fit for your machine.
Printheads and printer spare parts for wide-format, textile, label and industrial UV machines.
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