Apparatus for digital printing on closures for containers

An apparatus for digital printing on closing components for containers, comprising:

• a loading container configured for containing a plurality of closing components for said containers;
• a conveyor line for said closing components;
• a withdrawing device for withdrawing said closing components from said loading container, aimed at taking said closing components from said loading container and placing said closing components along said conveyor line;
• a digital printing station, arranged along said conveyor line and comprising a digital printing device configured for executing a graphic and/or text reproduction on each of said closing components;
• at least one position sensor, arranged upstream of the digital printing station, configured for detecting a position of at least one of the closing components passing along said conveyor line;
• a command and control unit, to which said position sensor is connected to provide information about the position of the closing components situated on said conveyor line and acting on said digital printing device to activate said digital printing device at a predetermined times, which depends on said detected position;
• a user interface device, configured to allow the user to interact with said command and control unit to select and/or modify an image to be printed, according to which said command and control unit sends control instructions to said digital printing device to reproduce the selected and/or modified image on said closing components;
• wherein said digital printing device comprises a series of ink-jet nozzles arranged along said conveyor line and operating in four-color process in succession to reproduce said selected and/or modified image on said closing components;
• wherein at least one additional ink-jet nozzle aimed at covering said closing components with a first layer of background color is positioned at an inlet section of said digital printing station preceding said series of ink-jet nozzles operating in four-color process;
• at least one UV device configured for only partially drying said background color applied to said closing components, situated downstream of said additional ink-jet nozzle aimed at covering said closing components with a background color and upstream of at least certain ones of said series of ink-jet nozzles operating in four-color process.