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Durst Rho SP 60 industrial UV printer for wood veneer for wall panels and flooring

You can run any kind of material through this printer that you wish, at speeds of roughly 40 meters per minute. At these speeds the UV lamps will pin the UV curable ink. You then need a separate unit to fully cure the ink. One advantage of the ink still being tacky is that some lacquer may adhere better to an ink surface in this state.

Most of the material used in my testing this printer at the Durst factory demo room in Brixen (South Tirol in northern Italy) was HDF material, which is essentially highly compressed sawdust with a thin veneer on top. You can also use MDF, medium pressure materials.

You can also print on cork or gypsum (such as ceiling tiles). The “cork” in this case is a thin layer over HDF board. In some cases you might wish to paint the surface white first (depending on what final effect you wish). The cork is useful for insulation.

Veneer stripes and other flexible materials for interior design can be perfectly printed on with the Durst Rho SP 60 industrial UV printer.

Most factories would print onto thick rigid materials but you can also print veneer onto roll-fed material by asking for the roll-feeding and roll-takeup option.

The leading wood processing company in Austria, Kaindl, near Salzburg, has one of these Durst Rho SP 60 industrial printers. Kaindl also has a Cruse scanner, indeed I visited this company about three years ago when invited to give a lecture at a nearby technical university outside Salzburg. When I saw what Kaindl was doing at that time, I recommended they consider a Cruse scanner. The SP 60 did not exist at that time.

You can also turn Kapaboard or other foam-core into mahogany wood paneling

Printing luxurious wood grain color and pattern onto wood-like material is the obvious first step. But it is even lower cost to manufacture “wood” if you print on cheaper material, especially if you need the wood only for a temporary structure, such as a trade show booth or other exhibit.

Sample printed by the Durst Rho SP 60 industrial UV printer at the factory visit.

Sophisticated technology in the Durst Rho SP 60

When you visit the factory demo room you can see things that are not always realistic to experience at a trade show booth. So in Brixen it was possible to see how the printheads were cleaned. Most wood industry factories are dusty, so you need a printer that can keep itself clean.

This is a one-pass system, printing with 40 S-Class Spectra heads per color. This means 160 heads all together, each with 128 nozzles. The heads are arranged in a module, each with slots to hold 10 heads. So there are four modules per color.

The Durst Rho SP 60 printer industrial UV printer at the factory visit 2008.

 

 

First posted October 6, 2008.