Apparatus for printing on plastic tubing

摘要

An apparatus is presented for printing material on an extruded plastic tubing. An extruder forms the plastic tubing of the desired diameter and thickness. The tubing is then drawn through a cooling bath by a pulling mechanism, and cut into desired lengths. The tubing may be dried after the cooling process, and an ink jet printer is utilized to print on the tubing as it is being drawn to be cut. A computer controls the printing process in correlation with the tubing cutter to provide a print signal to the printer in accordance with the desired lengths of tubing. The print heads of the printer are also three-dimensionally adjustable so as to center the printed material on the desired size and length of tubing to be cut.