Watch — AS-650: What It Can Print (5:33)

Prefer to read? Every chapter is written out below with its timestamp — click the time on any heading to jump to it in the video.

1. How a fixed-head address printer lays ink on a piece ▶ 0:00

Hi, this is All For Mailers. If you’re looking at a Rena AS-650 — or any fixed-head address printer like it — this short walkthrough shows exactly how it lays ink on a piece: what it can print, where it can print it, and the two or three rules that decide whether a layout will work. About five minutes.

2. Two print banks, six cartridges, a 3″ x 17″ image area ▶ 0:23

The whole machine comes down to this: two print banks. Each bank is three HP-45 cartridges stacked on top of each other, and each cartridge is half an inch tall, so a bank gives you a print path an inch and a half tall. Put both banks together and you’ve got three inches of coverage over a piece up to seventeen inches long, at up to 600 dpi. On speed — the brochure says 26,000 envelopes an hour; plan on 15 to 17 thousand real-world once you count hopper refills, which lines up fine with feeding it stacks of a hundred.

Note on cartridges: the AS-650 (and AS-450) use RENA’s chipped AS-series cartridges, not the older standard HP 45-type. The AS-150 uses the standard type. Ink links are at the end of this page.

3. The heads stand still — the piece moves ▶ 1:04

Here’s the part that explains everything else. The heads never move. The packet moves. As each packet passes under a bank, that bank paints a stripe an inch and a half tall down the whole length of the piece. So the question for any layout is always: where does that stripe land, and which way does the text read.

The rule the video doesn’t cover: the piece has to stay under control

The stripe only lands where it should if the piece is moving steadily and lying flat as it passes under the heads. That is a transport job, and it is the difference between our three RENA printers on small media.

• The RENA AS-150 carries the piece on a single transport belt that stays in contact with it the whole way under the printhead. That is the reason it does such a good job on seed packets and other small media, and it is the printer we sell most for that work.
• The RENA AS-650 does the same job with several belts side by side, at production volume.
• The RENA AS-450 has no belt in contact with the piece; feed wheels carry it. A piece has to be large enough to stay on the wheels and not get stuck under the printhead. It prints seed packets — fed short edge first, with everything inside its 2″ band — but it is the more limited of the three on small media.

Which one fits your packet? See Seed Packet Printers: RENA AS-150 vs AS-450 vs AS-650.

4. Each bank’s 1.5″ path can sit almost anywhere ▶ 1:27

Each bank slides across the width of the piece independently. Stack the two and you get one solid three-inch block. Split them and you can print near the top edge and near the bottom edge of the same packet. Or use just one.

5. Text reads along the direction of travel — and the 0.5″ rule ▶ 1:43

Direction of travel matters. Text that reads along the stripe is drawn cleanly, one slice at a time, as the piece goes by. Flipping an element upside-down — 180 degrees — is free; on a seed packet that’s how the flap lines are done, so they read right-side-up once the flap is folded over. What you don’t want is tall text standing on end at 90 degrees. Any rotated element taller than half an inch crosses the seam between two cartridges, and the slightest misalignment shows up as broken letters. Under half an inch, it stays inside one cartridge and it’s fine.

6. A seed packet fed upright — what prints and what doesn’t ▶ 2:26

Let’s apply that to a seed packet, fed upright. Everything in red is easy: the two tiny lines on the flap, printed inverted for the fold; the price and weight block, wherever it sits on a given pack; and body text. Bank one takes the flap and the top of the panel, bank two slides to the price. The yellow block down the right edge is the exception — it’s about four inches tall and it reads at 90 degrees to travel, so in this orientation it isn’t printable.

7. The fix — feed the packet on its side ▶ 3:01

The fix is to turn the packet, not the text. Fed on its side, that edge block now reads along the direction of travel and fits easily inside one bank. The trade-off is the other bank: it becomes a path an inch and a half wide starting at the left edge of the price, and the price and the flap text both have to live inside it. Because those two are now at 90 degrees to travel, each has to stay under half an inch wide. The flap text is still printed inverted so it reads correctly with the back panel after folding. So you get the edge block, the price, and the flap on one pass — with the price and flap kept compact.

8. How much fits — 3 lines per cartridge, 9 per bank, 18 total ▶ 3:46

How much text fits. Use 12-point type at 12-point line spacing — no extra leading — and you get exactly three lines per cartridge, nine per bank, eighteen across both. That’s not just about capacity; it keeps every line inside a single cartridge so no line is printed half by one head and half by the next, which is what makes text look italic or broken. This is also why we strongly recommend running the layouts in Bulk Mailer Designer or FlexMail — the screen shows you the cartridge grid, so you can see which head prints each line before you run a single packet.

Lay it out first: Bulk Mailer Designer and FlexMail both draw the cartridge grid on screen.

9. The rules on one page ▶ 4:28

Do:

• Keep each element inside a 1.5″ path (or the 3″ stacked block)
• Run text left-to-right along the direction of travel
• Invert (180°) anything that must read from the other side
• Rotated 90° elements are fine under 0.5″
• 12 pt type at 12 pt spacing — 3 lines per cartridge, 9 per bank
• Lay it out in Bulk Mailer Designer or FlexMail
• Print anywhere across the piece — the banks slide to the spot

Don’t:

• Stand text on end at 90° if it’s taller than 0.5″
• Ask one bank to print taller than 1.5″
• Spread one block wider than the two paths (3″)
• Let a line straddle two cartridges
• Count on full-bleed color — this is a monochrome text and data printer

Here are the rules on one page. If a layout follows these, the AS-650 will print it. Keep each element in a 1.5-inch path, run text along travel, invert anything that needs to read from the other side, keep 90-degree elements under half an inch, use 12-point at 12-point spacing, and lay it out in Designer or FlexMail first.

10. Seed packets are the worked example — which printer for yours?

The video uses the AS-650 because it shows both banks at work. Whether your job wants the AS-150, the AS-450, or the AS-650 comes down to packet size, what prints where, and volume — and to transport, above. We compare all three on one page: Seed Packet Printers: RENA AS-150 vs AS-450 vs AS-650. The same thinking applies to coin envelopes, tags, and small cards.

Not sure your piece will work? Send us samples and we’ll print them ▶ 4:55

If you’re weighing an AS-650 or a similar fixed-head printer, the fastest way to know whether it fits your piece is to let us print it. Email us a few samples of whatever you mail — envelopes, postcards, seed packets — and tell us what needs to be printed where. We’ll lay it out, run it, and send back photos or a short video so you can see the result before you buy. Every unit ships with 24/7 tech support from people who’ve been in this business since 1991. Thanks for watching.

Ink for fixed-head address printers

• RENA AS-450 and AS-650: chipped AS-series cartridges
• RENA AS-150: MRH45A standard black (compares to HP C51645A)

Parts and supplies for every machine we sell are at SuppliesForMailers.com.

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James Angst — President, All For Mailers, Inc. In the mailing equipment industry since 1991; founded All For Mailers in 2006. Veteran-Owned · BBB Accredited A+ · Authorized RENA by Quadient dealer. About us.