This spring we were approached by Roy DeWitt, owner of Wind River Brewing Company in beautiful Wyoming. He was seeking a cost effective coding option to attach to his newly acquired twist rinse cage and depalletizer.
Although Roy was new to the world of inkjet date coding, he knew what he wanted. His main requirements for a coding printer were that it was easy to use, affordable and pain free. Ultimately, he wanted to be able to "set it and forget it" as we like to say. He also needed to be able to print on the bottom or side of the can as it was coming down the twist rinse cage from his depalletizer.After carefully listening to his issues and needs, we recommended our SNEED-JET Titan for his consideration. The printer utilizes thermal inkjet technology powered by Hewlett-Packard® ink cartridges. Meenjet is a fully licensed Hewlett-Packard® technology partner and they have developed a series of printers based on this technology with inline and handheld versions available.
Roy's fears of trying a new technology were assuaged with the assurance of our 30 day performance guarantee. In the event it did not work to his specifications, he knew he could contact us to return it for a refund.
"We use sleeved 16 oz cans and installed the date printer before the twist rinse. With our setup it made sense to print upside down while the can was inverted to meet the spacing requirements for the printer head (we tried a few different positions before settling on this location). The printer, gap sensor and clamps were easy to install and we used existing holes to mount. We have about 3 hours of labor into the setup and most of that is finding the best place to mount the printer."
A few short weeks after getting the printer, we received the above video from him to show us how well the printer was working for him. According to Roy, "Once we determined the best place to install we have had no issues with the machine. We've printed over 20,000 cans so far in the system with no issues."
I reached out to him for approval to write a brief post about his decision to purchase our printer. Upon receiving his approval, I asked him if there was anything in particular I should share from his perspective on the printer. Simply put, he said:
"You have a tool that’s valuable to a lot of breweries. They need to know about your product."
Are you also in the midst of acquiring new production equipment? Does the complex world of coding and marking printers intimidate you? Call or email us today and we'd be happy to hear about your requirements and make the appropriate recommendation.