The new Durst digital label press arrived at the firm’s Letchworth Garden City site at the beginning of last week, and installation is nearing completion.
Managing director Jon Lancaster said he expected the Tau to start printing today (26 April) and be in production from next week.
Up until now Printed Easy has been an all-HP Indigo house on the digital side. The new Durst Tau replaces one of its two HP Indigo WS6900 label presses, which has been sold.
Labels and stickers are a popular option with customers of the web-to-print specialist.
“The Durst is faster and has some advantages. It works on PP substrates with no primer and has a wider colour gamut,” Lancaster explained.
“We’ve also got the new LED drying on it. Instead of a regular UV lamp that’s on all the time, it switches on whenever there’s pigment present.”
The press runs at 52m/min and is configured with CMYK plus white ink.
Printed Easy has also opted for Durst’s new Hawk Eye system, first shown last year at Labelexpo.
Hawk Eye automates print quality control using a combination of system information, cameras and AI for simultaneous inspection, detection and correction.
Simon Cosh, UK and Ireland label business development manager at Durst, said: “We’re delighted to become Printed Easy’s first inkjet supplier and to secure this project.
“Jon and the Printed Easy team are very forward-thinking and it’s a really dynamic company.”
Lancaster said the total investment including workflow integration was around £500,000.
He said the market was “tough” but the business was still growing and highly profitable, with plans to add a host of new features to its website this year.
Lancaster said the 57-employee firm was tracking for sales of £15.7m this year.
Printed Easy’s machine park also includes a six-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 106 with coater, three HP Indigo B2 sheetfed presses, and a seven-colour HP Indigo 7900 with heavy substrate option.
On the post-press side it has an extensive range of label converting, binding and stitching kit. The firm installed a Scodix Ultra 6000 SHD digital embellisher last year.
Lancaster said a Printed Easy team would be at the upcoming Drupa expo scoping out B2 sheetfed inkjet presses and on-demand book production kit.
