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Durst Rhopac corrugated packaging printer

We first saw the Durst Rhopac at its international debut, FESPA 2005, in Munich. Durst had a party that lasted until after midnight (at the Audi factory, which was a separate experience in itself).

Since my PhD is from Karl Franzens Universitaet, Graz, Austria, I have an inherent interest in products manufactured in Austria.

Several months later in Italy it was possible to inspect a nice exhibit of products printed with the Durst Rhopac printer (at the VisCom Milan trade show).

And in Amsterdam this spring I could see the Durst Rhopac in action at FESPA Digital.

Durst Rhopac

Alternative printers for printing on packaging materials

The two main competitors are the well established and very impressive Scitex Vision CORjet, now renamed the HP Scitex FB6700. They had a nice party to celebrate the CORjet at the Milan Italy trade show. Good networking opportunity.

The other potential competitor in the future is the FastJet, manufactured for SunJet by Inca. This printer has been stalled in development for two long years after a prototype was shown at DRUPA 2004.

The Inca Fastjet is UV-curable, with a page-array width of printheads. The Durst Rhopac is also UV-curable, but has a quad-array (not a full width of the print area). The CORjet is a splendid machine, using its unique Aprion printheads. These do not use UV-curable inks. With HP behind Scitex Vision nowadays, the competition will heat up.

There are no viable Chinese printers that can handle corrugated packaging material. At least none yet. The Chinese do not yet have the capability to build a printer as complex as the CORjet that would function reliably.

Mimaki recently launched a new printer for smaller format packaging materials, the Mimaki DM2-1810. This is water-based, though a solvent-based version can be special ordered. There is not presently a UV-curable version of this format since Mimaki already has a separate general flatbed UV printer in preparation, the Mimaki IPF 1326.

We expect that during 2007 that other major manufacturers will produce other specialized printers for corrugated and packaging materials. For this reason FLAAR is scheduled to dedicate additional attention to this market segment.

Durst Rhopac at the left with Durst Rho 600 Pictor at the right, with samples from FLAAR photography with medium format digital cameras. Nicholas Hellmuth with Edo Sternad and David Skrl (SDT Institute) two key officers of the Slovenian screen printing association (member of FESPA) at the Durst factory demo room in Lienz, Austria, February 2008.

Most recently updated Nov 27, 2006.