A quieter week on paper, but three of this week's stories land squarely on the hardware side of the shop floor. Kyocera has a new recirculating head coming to market with double the firing frequency, a UK sign shop brought a 3.3-metre flatbed online on Ricoh Gen 6 heads, and Durst put its new hybrid P5 350 CORE in front of the Italian market for the first time. Add a textile colour launch, a Wisconsin packaging acquisition that brings conductive-film printing in-house, and TLMI's award season wrapping up in Fort Lauderdale, and there's plenty here that touches what you run and what you'll be replacing next.
Industrial Inkjet · October 28
Meteor Inkjet backs Kyocera's new KJ4A-EX600RC-HX recirculating printhead
Meteor Inkjet confirmed that its PDC-2K600EX drive electronics will support Kyocera's KJ4A-EX600RC-HX when the head reaches commercial sale, which Kyocera expects in November. The new head roughly doubles operating frequency to 40 kHz — enough for production speeds up to 100 m/min — and raises maximum drop volume to 21 picolitres, a 23% increase over the earlier KJ4A-AL. Internal recirculation keeps fluid moving right up at the nozzle plate. Meteor says OEMs and system builders can integrate it using existing hardware, software and APIs, with drive electronics already in stock.
The printhead angle: this is the clearest statement yet that recirculation has stopped being a premium option and become the baseline for anything running difficult fluids. White ink, varnish and foil adhesive all settle, and they all dry at the nozzle the moment the head idles. Recirculating designs fight both at once by never letting the ink sit still — which is also why a recirculating head punishes a neglected ink system harder than a non-recirculating one: if your filters and degassing aren't right, you're now circulating the problem instead of parking it.
Wide-Format UV · October 28
Staffordshire Signs & Graphics brings a 3.3-metre DLI-3325 flatbed online on Ricoh Gen 6 heads
UK signage firm Staffordshire Signs & Graphics has installed a DLI-3325 flatbed supplied by China Print Supplies UK, running Ricoh Gen 6 printheads. The machine gives a 3.3 m x 2.5 m print area — big enough to lay down two 8 x 4 boards in a single pass — with a 5 pl minimum dot, a maximum 1800 dpi, six high-power vacuum zones and both unidirectional and bidirectional modes. It is in place now and going through fine-tuning and operator training ahead of full commissioning.
The printhead angle: a 5 pl minimum drop at 1800 dpi is Gen 6 territory, and it is worth noting what that buys and what it costs. Smaller drops mean smaller nozzles, and smaller nozzles clog faster and less forgivingly — on a flatbed where the head passes close over rigid board, a single strike or a dusty substrate can take out a row you will see in every print afterwards. If you're specifying a machine on dot size, budget for head-height discipline and a real wiping routine in the same breath.
Industrial UV · October 28
Durst gives the hybrid P5 350 CORE its Italian debut at Viscom Milan
Durst showed the P5 350 CORE to the Italian market for the first time at Viscom 2026, held 28–29 October at Allianz MiCo in Milan. First previewed at FESPA 2026, the hybrid is pitched at the mid-market as an entry point into the wider P5 ecosystem, and combines ten colour channels, an enhanced vacuum system and LED lamps that support high-speed liquid lamination. Durst reports roughly ten systems sold since the international launch, three of them in Italy. Agfa was at the same show with the 3.3 m Jeti Bronco H3300 HS, rated up to 450 m²/h.
The printhead angle: ten colour channels is the part to notice. Every extra channel is another head, another damper, another filter and another line that has to stay purged — and on a hybrid that switches between roll and rigid, channels carrying white or varnish will sit idle for long stretches between jobs. Machines with wide channel counts live or die on how disciplined the idle-state maintenance is, not on how fast they print.
Textile & Colour · October 28
CHT Group adds two colorants to its dyes portfolio
The CHT Group has extended its dyes range with two products. BEMACID Brilliant Blue F-WN is a blue for polyamide and wool, added to the BEMACID F range, which CHT describes as metal-free and AOX-free with strong wet fastness and colour brilliance. BEZAKTIV Solar Yellow ONE is a reactive dye for exhaust and continuous dyeing — a lightfast, non-photochromic golden yellow intended for trichromatic work alongside BEZAKTIV Coral Red ONE and Aquamarine ONE, with uniform results from light to dark shades and good wash-off.
The printhead angle: dyes for exhaust and continuous dyeing aren't inkjet fluids, but the direction of travel matters to anyone running digital textile. Every reformulation toward metal-free, cleaner chemistry eventually arrives at the inkjet side, and that is where nozzle plates feel it — pigment load, dispersant package and pH all change how a fluid wets and releases from a nozzle. If you switch ink chemistry on a textile machine, treat it as a maintenance change too, not just a colour change: flush schedules and cap-station solutions that suited the old fluid may not suit the new one.
Labels & Packaging · October 27
Outlook Group acquires ABX's Pewaukee plant, adding conductive-film printing
Outlook Group of Neenah, Wisconsin has completed the acquisition of ABX – Innovative Packaging Solutions' manufacturing facility in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. Terms were not disclosed. The deal adds specialty label production, flexible packaging capacity, and conductive-film printing with in-house ink formulation for medical and electronic applications. Pewaukee becomes Outlook's third Wisconsin site alongside its two Neenah plants.
The printhead angle: conductive-film printing is where jetting stops being about colour and starts being about metal in suspension. Silver and carbon-loaded fluids are abrasive, they are heavy, and they settle fast — which is exactly the duty cycle that pushes converters toward robust industrial heads with recirculation and generous nozzle pitch rather than graphics-grade heads. If functional printing is on your roadmap, the head you choose constrains the fluid far more than the other way round.
Awards · October 31
Hub Labels takes Elevation-level sustainability honours and three print awards at TLMI
Hub Labels won TLMI's Calvin Frost Sustainability Leadership Award at the Elevation level — its third Elevation honour, after 2020 and 2021 — at the 2026 TLMI Annual Meeting, held 25–27 October in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The converter also collected three awards in TLMI's 49th Annual Printing Excellence Awards: first place in Promotional & Extended Content for a WWII B-17 Bomber label, first place in Wine & Spirits for the Case 1 Rum 250th Edition label, and second place in the same category for Bigfoot Bourbon Whiskey.
The printhead angle: award-winning label work is won on consistency across a long run, and nothing erodes consistency faster than a drifting nozzle check. Deflected or dropped nozzles rarely announce themselves — they show up as a faint band in a flat tint or a shifted hue in a critical spot colour, three thousand metres in. The shops that place in these categories are the ones running a nozzle check as a gate at the start of every job, not as a diagnostic after a complaint.
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.
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Sources: Wide-Format Impressions, Texintel, Label & Narrow Web.
