Patent ID: 8865256

Claim:
A tire surface printing method, the tire surface printing method comprising the steps of: mounting a vulcanized tire on a rim; inflating the tire mounted on the rim; positioning the tire horizontally so that a rotation shaft traversing a center of the tire is perpendicular; and performing desired multicolor printing with a selected head that is selected from any one of an inkjet printer head, an air spray head, and an airless spray head that ejects and applies coating material onto a same radial position of a sidewall of the tire as raised/recessed characters provided on the sidewall by: rotating the tire at a constant velocity by driving the rotation shaft with a rotation driving device so that the tire rotates along with the rotation shaft; applying the desired multicolor printing by the selected head ejecting and applying the coating material onto the sidewall of the rotating tire; drying and hardening the coating material ejected by the selected head with a means for drying and hardening; and detecting, with an external sensor, a specific raised/recessed character on the surface of the tire while the tire rotates, setting an origin of rotation of the tire, and synchronizing an operation start time of the selected head with the origin of rotation so as to maintain a constant relationship between a position of the specific raised/recessed character and a position of application of the coating material.