Online Labels Forum

I have seen various nice tips to add a protective layer or coating to a label but we require something that is usable for printing on-demand and not for hobby project or one-time off solutions that fits higher productivity requirements.

I am looking to see if anybody has tips for on-demand printers. We use industrial inkjet printers and print on coated PP, PE, polyester and paper. But for bin-labels, chemical resistance like kitchens, outdoor and warehousing these labels are not durable enough.

I am looking for several solutions that help us. We think about thin coat with thermal transfer and thicker coating with special printer. But I cannot find the right ribbons and special printers and I do not have any experience with it either. Anybody suggestions for this or other solutions then already in this forum?

Suggested in this forum I found solutions that do not work for us and please do not recommend them because they do not fit our application:
1. Applying clear label over label, while smart solution in production this is too difficult and for large labels not piratical too difficult. The cost and problems are too high. Our labels vary in sizes 1 inch up to Letter size width and lengths can be 1 inch up to several pages in length.
2. Spraying coating is good for special projects with one to a few labels. Not for on-demand printing and spraying is not allowed in many production facilities including ours.

We require printing die-cut full color labels with standard rounded corners. For this customer 4.7 x 7 inches. Plus another that is roughly 4x4 or 5x5 inches depending if the regulations require a larder label or not.

Your suggestion is quite good but unfortunately it cannot print full color and is too small for our applications. In general, we require labels from 1 inch up to a full letter size page width.

I have looked into getting thermal transfer ribbons that can put a clear coat over the labels. This may work. But I have not found a supplier for this kind of ribbons. Anybody?

Thermal Transfer has also benefits for some of our other applications; it is very thin but potentially has advantages that it will not glue label elements together. In this application we have die-cut labels but for other customers we also have combined labels where the combinations are die-cut and the elements of each label are butt-cut. I know, complex but it is required. Because we often use bleed printing we need a bleed-zone and a ribbon may be the best solution. But I am not sure it it really works this way if you print a clear coat over the cut-out zone (inner versus outer label area). This may be closer to on demand. I know the general thermal transfer printer suppliers but not suppliers just for special coating. May be somebody else know a few for larger labels?

The other way is indeed a desktop UV float coat device but that is complex and not really print-on-demand. May be a mini device exist that we can put inline but I have not found any yet. There is some worry about contamination when in a harsh environment but any solution is better then none. It will not allow die-cut label elements. Does anybody know suppliers of small desktop UV coaters?

The difficult part is that our customers typically want print-on-demand and that makes it complex. They also do not want extra steps before applying a label (read lost production). To my knowledge there is not an affordable single device that can do it all at once. I hope somebody can correct me because that would help.