Postmark PM-417 & PM-836 Development
The Postmark PM-417 and PM-836 are industrial single pass printing systems developed in partnership with Canon Finetech using the PM-200 Print Module
Prototype and Proof of Concept
Postmark was approached by Kanematsu, a Japanese trading company in 2014 with an opportunity to develop a Canon Finetech industrial print engine for commercial and specialty printing. The print module and technology are leveraged from a commercial color label printer. At the time, Postmark was a reseller of an industrial single color printing system by Xijet, but had no other experience developing printers. I was tasked with heading up development of this new print module.
With little to no experience in developing an industrial printer, I had my work cut out for me with plenty to learn along the way. For this project, Postmark would partner with Kelenn Technology, a French software and printer developer who was responsible for software development. Four prototypes were commissioned, two of which I would build in France just outside of Paris.
I started by setting up a test rig with one of the development kits so we could better learn the dynamics of the print technology:
One of the challenges with this print technology was the ink delivery system. As the printer was taken from a prosumer level printer, the ink was delivered through 240ml plastic cartridge tanks which needed to sit below the print deck. As we were aiming to sell this printer as a modular solution that could be mounted on any conveyor, we had to come up with a compact printhead solution as well as an easy way to mount the ink tanks below the transport deck.
As we were also entering a new market, I was tasked with coming up with a design that was something more than a beige box commonly seen in office equipment. On a work trip in England, I had some free time and started playing around with designs that could house the print module. For this, I drew inspiration from items that I always thought were cool: Old Radios, and The Playstation 2.
The four colored stripes represent the four colors of ink that the printer uses: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. Once the cover design was approved, I then started figuring out exactly how this could be manufactured. The printhead assembly would need to be very rigid as it would needed to be mounted perfectly level at an adjustable height.
Prototype parts were ordered December 2014 with a Trip to France in late January scheduled for initial assembly and testing.
Parts were powdercoated, and it was off to France with the cases in some very large and heavy suitcases. I was able to retrofit our partner's development kit hardware into our new housings and we held a small debut of the new product with prospective dealers. The product was well received even with its rough edges, so after returning home I began work on finalizing the design for a production run of 25 units. The covers were streamlined a bit, and internal printer frame was redesigned to increase rigidity so that we could cantilever the printer when mounted.
PM-200 Production
Above, you can see the prototype mounting bridge that I developed. When a printer was sold, customers would specify the mounting width of their conveyor. Postmark would supply a custom mounting bridge for mounting the printer. The bridge allowed for precision lateral (across the belt) movement, as well as about an inch of height adjustment.
I shot and edited promo videos for the Postmark YouTube channel which I created and managed which can be seen below - these were very well received and brought in quite a bit of leads from all around the globe.
At this point, sales were pretty steady for the printer and new applications were coming in daily. We had our fair share of challenges and hardships with the technology and our software partners, but continued to push forward. It was at this time, we started developing a double module (two printhead) system which would allow larger printing up to 8.36" x 30". This required a new prototype and some new ideas to the product line.
One of the ideas that we had with the original design was that we would have a printhead and a separate mounting bridge for mounting the printhead to a conveyor. I noticed that for nearly every printer sold so far, a mounting bridge was also ordered. In order to simplify the design, I suggested that for the double print module version, we experiment with an internal height adjustment mechanism. While the prototype was ambitious, it did give us a proof of concept which would be later used in the single print head version of the product. We called this prototype the "wobble knob" due to the coupler on the knob which would wobble everytime the printer moved.
At this point, we were waiting on software to be developed for the double printer (now named PM-836) and we had plenty of feedback from the first batch of PM-200 installs. I started working on the new hardware for the single printer (named PM-417) and double printer (PM-836). The new designs would have internal height adjustments similar to the wobble knob prototype shown above.
This new design solved a lot of problems and brought us to the next level with the product. With this updated design, we were able to lower production costs, lower assembly time, increase serviceability, and improve print quality. It also removed the need to have wires and ink lines go from the printhead down to the ink tanks. After the PM-417 was launched, the PM-836 hardware followed shortly after
We then took the products on the road to various tradeshows which I would organize where we would find all sorts of various applications for this printer. I made a final promo video for the product line which is currently approaching 100K views on Youtube.
Adventures in Ink Land
We sold printers for printing on napkins, T-shirts, mouse traps, coasters, seed paper, boxes....All sorts of stuff. With each product came a different challenge, but the biggest entry hurdle was always cost of ink for this printer.
There is one thing in common with Inkjet printers - nobody likes paying for ink. HP and Canon usually price and design their printers around reoccurring ink revenue, and ink from Canon was pricing the system out of a lot of markets. We attempted to work with Canon on a solution, but were not met with any wiggle room. It was at this point, I started testing out alternative methods of ink delivery for the Canon printers.
I participated in a lot of ink testing. I was working daily with various ink suppliers to test the limits and requirements of this print technology. For most inkjet printers, you can dial in the settings by adjusting voltage, pulse widths, and temperatures at the nozzle. At this point, we were basically cut off from Canon technical support and had to find our own solutions.
After lots of testing (and lots of defeated days), we were able to find solutions and release our own formula of ink for the printers. Not only did this lower our ink cost around 75%, it had improved print quality and ink features such as water fastness and even FDA approved ink.
In addition to solving the ink formula, we also had to solve another problem: cartridge tagging.
A cartridge tag is a small eeprom chip that the printer firmware checks to ensure the ink is genuine and sold specifically for this product. For our testing, the printer was reading genuine eeprom chips from new cartridges, but I just plumbed the ink tubes to a bulk supply. That solution doesn't exactly work in the field, so I got to work.
I had a collection of used eeproms from cartridges used for testing. After some research and tinkering, I was able to use an Arduino to read the chips contents and I started examining the values in excel. I was able to determine the coding scheme and re-write cartridges for the printer!
It was at this point that we recently hired an electrical engineering student who was eager for a project. Him and I got to work on developing a custom PCB for the canon system that would bypass ink tracking as well as simplify our wiring for assembly.
I started pushing management to fund an electronics development lab for Postmark. I was able to secure the budget, and we built out a small electronics protoype lab with hot air stations, a reflow oven, and various electronics diagnostics and manufacturing tools. In late 2018, we launched our 3rd and final itteration of the PM-417 and PM-836 - each with their own bulk ink delivery system and new improved hardware. Also with this version, our own PCB which bypassed ink tagging for the system with our own custom eeprom.
About a year after releasing the final version of the PM-417 and PM-836, my work shifted to development for the HP FI-1000 print engine. This Canon product line was essentially replaced by the HP unit as it was a lower cost solution with more quality, speed, and print width.
This project was one of the most challenging projects that I have had in my life and I learned a ton along the way which paved the path to success for the HP printer I later developed. I traveled the world with this product spending time in France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden throughout the lifecycle of this product.