Colour change specialist DataLase has launched “a cost-effective alternative” to conventional print-and-apply methods of marking outer case secondary packaging with barcodes and the like.
Requiring no inks, ribbons or applicators, the “virtually maintenance-free” CASEMARK technology involves applying robust, inert inorganic coatings onto the specific area of the outer case as the packaging is produced. Users currently buy their cartonboard or corrugated either pre-flood or patch coated with the special coating across a specific label area only. On the production line a computer-controlled low energy beam from an industrial CO2 marking laser (supplied as part of the package) then “writes” the required label data onto the mark area, causing a colour change reaction from white to black.
Imaging occurs without substrate contact, meaning no physically induced head wear, while the laser-marked image will not “bleed” on absorbent substrates.