Patent ID: 6907822

Claim:
A printing machine for printing stoppers of the type having a surface that is normally non-ink receptive, comprising: (a) a rotatable carrier assembly having a plurality of carriers mounted for rotation, each of the carriers adapted for holding and carrying at least one stopper; (b) an indexing drive system for controlled incremental rotation of the carrier assembly through a predetermined sequence of steps; (c) a bulk hopper for holding a supply of stoppers in preparation for being fed to the rotatable carrier assembly; (d) an orienting apparatus for orienting a single stopper into a loading position relative to the carriers; (e) a feeder for introducing an oriented stopper into selected ones of empty carriers presented one-by-one at the feeder; (f) a heat generator for heating the surface of each stopper prior to being printed sufficiently to alter the surface energy of the and permit receptivity of printing ink onto the surface of the stopper; and (g) a printing system for imprinting with ink the surface of each held stopper with an image.