AVON POWERS UP WITH NEW HIGH SPEED DURST P5 350 HS

In its biggest wide format investment to date, Avon Graphics is installing Australia’s first Durst P5 350 HS system, significantly boosting its production power, and becoming one of the first printers in the world to take the high speed printer.

The Avon machine is a hybrid printer, with sheet-to-stack that can also operate as roll-to-roll, with Durst guaranteeing overnight unattended printing.Capable of pumping out 700sqm of high quality print an hour, the new Durst is a hungry beast, and gives Avon a significant step up in both its capacity and its turnaround time.

Best known as a trade embellisher, Avon began offering the trade-only wide format market five years ago, and since then has put in a series of printers in its Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane sites.

Tate Hone , managing director at Avon said, “We invested in the Durst because of its speed of production and quality of print. We live in an on-demand world, and post-Covid that demand will only increase.

“The new Durst is a huge uptick in capacity for Avon, and for the trade, we know it will serve the industry well. We are confident it is the right choice for us and for the trade. We feel with the new high capacity Durst we have moved from operating at the shallow end of the pool to being in the deep end, we will be able to handle anything required of us.”

The new Durst P5 350 HS is one of the first three to be installed anywhere in the world, and runs at twice the speed of the P5 350. Avon didn’t get the chance to see the printer in person, due to Covid restrictions there was no chance of going over to Italy, however Tate Hone says, “We knew the credentials of Durst technology, there is a fair amount of it in Australia, and at printers we know around the world. Its local CEO Matt Ashman talked us through the specifications and capabilities, which added up for our requirements. We sent demo files to Italy, which knocked us out when they came back.

“Durst Oceania of course has its own service centre in Australia, which we have only heard good things about, so we had no qualms at all about installing one of the company’s systems. We went for high capacity because we wanted to give the trade the best possible service. Wide format print is a bright spot in the industry, and now the trade has the capability to meet that demand with the new Durst at Avon.”

The new Durst will sit in the new wide format production centre in the company’s Melbourne premises, which has been created from what was the office block, and is now an air conditioned climate controlled dedicated print centre. The company has built a new office block on spare land it had next to the factory. The new wide format production centre is already on double shift working.

Matt Ashman CEO of Durst Oceania says, “It is so good to see the new printer going into Australia, and into Avon Graphics, which has built its wide format business really well in recent years.”

A 1.2 x 2.4 metre board can go through the Durst in 20 seconds. It will produce 700 sqm an hour, with three quarter automation and auto sheet stacking. Hone said, “We wanted auto unload as this means we will only need a single operator to run the machine.”

Ashman says, “The speed, quality and versatility are what sets the Durst P5 350 HS apart. The speed is more than double the existing P5 350, and it prints at 1200dpi in 7 picolitre drops, giving unbeatable quality. That means fine quality backlits, and Hapt images too for an oil painting like look."

With such a hungry machine Ashman says its versatility will enable printers to optimise productivity. He says, “You can print sheet to stack, or roll-to-roll, or multi-roll, you can even have a Fotoba cutter inline to print roll-to-stack.”

The P5 350HS is on the same platform as the Durst P5 350, P5 210, P5 250 WT (the water based printer) and P5 Tex, the textile printer. The new P5 350 HS uses less power, and is Greenguard certified, with all inks manufactured to Durst specifications.