Written by Andy Neat, Product Manager- Marking & Installation
When you think about marking in general, the first thing that springs to mind are the ‘little white tags’ that pop into the sides of terminals to identify them or the small numbers that slide onto a cable that I usually drop down the back of a panel never to be seen again! Three years ago I took the job as a ‘Marking System Specialist’ at Phoenix Contact which in part was due to the new printers and technologies Phoenix Contact were introducing to the marking world.
We have such ground breaking technologies as the Bluemark CLED , which uses UV light to cure ink permanently, and our most popular range the Thermomark Card & Roll, which uses a nice twist on thermal transfer printing to speed up what can be the laborious task of marking up a cabinet or panel.
Among other printers we have here at Phoenix Contact, our goal is to make the panel/cabinet/machine builder’s life a lot easier and we have succeeded in this so far, becoming the company with the biggest industrial marking range in world….but where do we go from here?
Marking is the probably the simplest, yet one of the most important products we produce at Phoenix Contact. Why? I hear you cry! Imagine you are working on site completing a £100,000 machine, the final job you need to do is mark the cables and guess what?….they’ve gone missing! A small card of markers that costs £2.50 have either been accidentally thrown away, left in the office or, unknown to you, used by a colleague to wedge under the canteen table to stop it rocking! The machine has to go out the door tomorrow and now that lost card of markers no longer costs £2.50, it now costs £100,000 and you have to call the office for another card of markers to be posted! I’ve been there!
Therefore, Phoenix Contact have seen a need to print markers on site, not just for misplaced markers but for ease of use, putting the control of the marking into the hands of the guys or ladies on site. There’s a need to have the flexibility to be able have a printer with you that requires no mains power source and is mobile enough to be popped into a bag to have close by where needed.
With that said, I introduce to you the new Mobile Marking range. Phoenix Contact have developed two new marking systems to take real advantage of the requirements of mobile marking.
First off, we have the THERMOMARK PRIME. I’ll be honest, I saw this myself for the first time in February and I was very impressed (but of course I would say that, I’m the Product Manger). The Developers at Headquarters in Germany have certainly excelled themselves with this, they appear to have thought of everything and covered it! The new THERMOMARK PRIME, like the current THERMOMARK CARD, still prints all the same 600+ materials available and operates from a PC as usual, but here’s the twist…now you can unplug the printer and take it to site with you where it will hold enough charge for 500-600 card print outs with no PC connected or a mains power connected. Now that’s pretty special! It’s also smaller than its older brother the THERMOMARK CARD, making it easier to transport, and it can come supplied with a laptop-like shoulder bag or backpack to carry it.
When printing on-site you can either pre-download the print jobs from our Clip Project software on your PC on to the printer, or you can manually type them on site with the touch screen on top of the printer. And as usual, it takes less then 8 seconds to print per card and is completely dry, cold and smudge free once it’s left the printer. I could continue here but I think there is a moral limit to how long a blog should be so I’ll wrap up the THERMOMARK PRIME here and tell you simply: its awesome! and I mean that! Here’s a short promotional video that was put together at our Headquarters in Germany:
Next up is the new THERMOFOX. This, like other competitors’ printers on the market, is a handheld printer designed to do a more basic range of labelling on-site. Labels available are strip-terminal markers, adhesive labels, cable wrap-arounds, shrink sleeve and more.
When it comes to hand-held printers there are different standards from ‘domestic’ up to ‘industrial’. I wouldn’t use this printer to go marking up my spice rack at home, this is most definitely an industrial printer, with capability to store 20 jobs on the device and it can also be used a desk printer with a PC if you are sat at the desk for the afternoon. All materials are supplied in a cassette with the matching ink ribbon, and, what’s more, all the materials are 30% longer than competition and cheaper. A cracking piece of kit!
These two printers are polishing off Phoenix Contact’s marking range very nicely. We have solutions for bulk printing, occasionally printing on-site printing and not forgetting the industries we have specialist labels for like power plants and the rail industry.
At the start of this blog I referenced marking as those ‘little white tags’ on terminals. Well not at Phoenix Contact, we see it as a complete solution offering to make engineers’ lives that little bit easier, speed up builds and make the job look professional. From what I see, at Phoenix Contact, we are not stopping here…we will keep raising the bar!
For more information, contact Andy on 07786 252414 or email: aneat@phoenixcontact.com
