Life’s a Bed of Rhos for Durst Imaging

"I look at Durst as a company that converts applications from analog processes to digital using inkjet technology,” says Larry D’Amico, Sales Director-North America, at Durst Image Technology (Booth 1945). “That’s pretty broad and goes way beyond print.”

Durst Imaging has a broad product portfolio that encompasses units for textile printing, flatbed applications, corrugated, even industrial printing applications. The company comes into this week’s Expo with three SGIA Product of the Year Awards.

In the category Roll-to-Roll Direct Disperse Ink on Textile, the winner was Durst’s Rhotex 325 (pictured at right), a 3.2-meter dye-sublimation machine that can print both transfer-based and direct-to-fabric on the same machine.

In the Roll-to-Roll UV (over 80 inches) category, the winner was Durst’s Rho 312R Plus, the company’s flagship 3.2-meter roll-to-roll device, which, says D’Amico, has been soaring in popularity this year. “People are looking to get more productive and they understand the need to be able to run unattended,” he says. “That’s one of the strengths of these printers.”

In the UV Hybrid/Flatbed High Volume Production Class category, Durst also won for its Rho P10 250 HS Plus, a 2.5-meter UV device.

Durst is also demonstrating a new “Plus” version of its high-end UV flatbed, the Rho 1312, which features what the company calls Smart4, a combination of software and a firmware upgrade that boosts the speed of the machine without requiring any upgrades to the print engine itself. “We found a way, through software, to dramatically improve the speed of our devices,” says D’Amico. The Rho 1312 Plus now can print 330 4 x 8-foot boards an hour. “We’re calling it ‘The fastest scanning system on the market.’”

Durst equipment uses a variety of different kinds of inks — dye-sublimation of various formulations as well as UV — but the company recently developed a new kind of ink based on Durst Water Technology. As the name indicates, these inks are water-based and are designed as an alternative to solvent and UV. The advantages are that Water Technology inks can produce lithographic print quality, are odorless and are more environmentally friendly than other ink technologies. Water Technology inks are available for the Rhotex line of printers, as well as the company’s recent Delta series designed for corrugated printing. Having such a wide variety of inks allows Durst to offer customers a great deal of flexibility in the materials they can print and the applications they can offer.

One application area that is growing in popularity is backlit fabrics via silicone-edge graphics (SEG). “We’re seeing a tremendous number of people utilizing our equipment for SEG applications,” says D’Amico. “There’s been demand for textiles, but people with UV printers don’t always want to invest in a specific textile machine. So we’ve seen a lot of SEG applications utilizing UV technology.” Because cured UV ink sits as a thin polymer layer on the surface of the fibers — rather than penetrating into the fibers like dye-sublimation — UV-printed textiles may be unsuitable for apparel, but perfect for signage, especially backlit graphics. “You actually get more contrast with UV because it sits on the top of the material and provides a bit more depth for backlit applications,” says D’Amico.