Chinese print manufacturer, MYJET has integrated camera intelligence into its UV conveyor printer, in order to tackle one of the more persistent bottlenecks in industrial digital print: accurate registration on irregular items without the need for pin guides, manual alignment or time-consuming setup.
Planning to launch the new tech at the upcoming APPEXPO at the NECC, Shanghai from 4th-7th March, at SHANGHAI APPPEXPO, the new visual positioning conveyor on MYJET’s CCD120 UV printer, centres on an integrated camera-driven workflow designed to identify, locate and print onto objects placed randomly on the belt - a capability that could prove to be invaluable for PSPs and manufacturers handling high-mix, short-run production.
In conventional workflows, printing onto non-standard shapes typically requires operators to position parts precisely, or investment in bespoke jigs to ensure repeatable placement. This adds labour, reduces flexibility and can lead to increased spoilage when product variations are introduced.
Negating this, the CCD120 uses a high-resolution camera system with dedicated lighting: the machine scans the conveyor in real time, recognises each item’s outline and automatically calculates print coordinates before imaging begins. The result is a process in which parts can simply be placed on the belt in arbitrary positions, with the system handling registration autonomously.
For production environments, this effectively removes the need for moulds or frames, allowing operators to switch between jobs, or even to run mixed batches, without mechanical changeover.
MYJET claims that the workflow is capable of distinguishing between multiple product geometries within the same run and applying different print files accordingly. This opens the door to true mixed-SKU production, where several product types can be processed together rather than sequentially, which in turn feeds into growing demand for mass customisation, particularly in sectors such as promotional goods, industrial components and consumer products, where batch sizes are shrinking but variation is increasing.
The broader significance of camera-guided printing is the move away from mechanical precision towards software-defined accuracy. By letting machine vision determine position dynamically, print providers gain the flexibility to handle irregular substrates, variable batches and on-demand workflows with fewer constraints.
If the technology performs as described, it could represent a meaningful step forward for operations where the economics of jigging have long limited productivity.
