Engineered Floors in Dalton, Georgia, has been an industry trail blazer with a pure color solution died fiber for carpeting. Now, the innovative flooring producer said that the next evolution in hard surfaces has arrived. 

Engineered Floors continues to disrupt the flooring industry with the latest cutting-edge technology “Digital Print LVT.” Pure Grain HighDef-technology is the first domestically made luxury vinyl tile in the U.S. that uses digital print technology to create high resolution designs directly on a high density SPC core. 

Hymmen, the machine and plant building company from Bielefeld, Germany, is the technology partner of Engineered Floors that delivered the award winning and patented technology for the digital decor and structure printing of the flooring.

The flooring products

“LVT reinvented,” is the opener of the latest image video of Engineered Floors, Dalton (see video, below). Using digital embossing technology, a grain structure is built up on the surface of the board creating an exact texture match to the design."

 This provides the closest authentic wood look and feel compared to any product on the market.  Each decor starts from real wood, designed with 35 unique plank patterns compared to traditional film products. With high-resolution digital printing, it is possible to achieve sharper details and a vivid color spectrum like never before! The increased dots per inch (DPI) lead to the High-Def color clarity allowing Engineered Floors to create industry-disrupting products. The flooring producer emphasizes that there is 5 x more color clarity with the digitally printed products compared to traditional film products. And additionally with the flooring product PureGrain not only the design but also durability meets unparalleled features and benefits. 

The flooring offers the realistic look and feel of actual wood for every taste: The collection includes modern light looks as well as darker designs. They can be used in every room you want to: in living rooms, bedrooms, and halls as well as in bathrooms thanks to the water resistance and durability. 

Engineered Floors points out that PureGrain products are 100% American Made, American Sourced and American owned. That includes advantages concerning the fast and easy access to the product, i.e. there is no waiting on international shipping. And the digitally printed directly to a high-density rigid core for exceptional realism is independent of possible international trade restrictions. 

Numerous points of sale have already been placed and the interested customers can ask their flooring installers or can have a look at the PureGrain Flooring of Engineered Floors at numerous dealers that are all persuaded by this new product that has entered the American flooring market.

Strong technology secured by patent partnership

The ability to produce high quality digitally printed flooring has become strategically important for the future of the global flooring industry. Hymmen has invented and patented innovative technologies for the production and digital decoration of flooring. Hymmen entered a technology partnership with i4F®, a group of companies providing patents and technologies dedicated to delivering the world’s best and most cutting-edge technologies to the global flooring industry. It includes exclusive licensing rights for all Hymmen’s digital printing patents and technologies for flooring production, such as Hymmen’s award winning Digital Lacquer Embossing (DLE) technology.

The journey of a blank plank to a beautiful digitally printed LVT product in the Dalton plant of involves the expertise of the design and manufacturing professionals of Engineered Floors as well as new state of the art equipment including a Hymmen Digital Printing Line: The JUPITER JPT-C digital single pass machine, a direct print-to-board line that delivers outstanding advanced features:

• Designed for 24/7 industrial production
• High-precision continuous substrate conveyor for maximum register accuracy
• Printing speeds of 25-50 m/min
• Optical resolution of >1000 dpi
• Highest color stability and print quality

The JUPITER line features the DLE (Digital Lacquer Embossing) technology, creating structures that are embossed-in-register (EIR) to the decor of the surface. This technology grants all commercial and technical benefits of digital single pass printing like flexibility, fast set-up times and individualization. The digital structuring supports the surface performance. All features like abrasion and scratch resistance, adhesion, and chemical reliability of the core lacquer remain. The whole process build up is UV-lacquer based.

The complete line has a length of 120 m overall. It includes a feeding portal, several liquid coating machines for print preparation, the digital décor printer JUPITER JPT-C, coating applications as an abrasion resistance performance layer, the Digital Lacquer Embossing (DLEplus), machines for the topcoat application and in the end of the line the stacking portal.  

The final product stands out with a perfectly registered embossing to the printing resulting in unparalleled visual and physical depth on the product surface. 

Project Management with Hymmen and future plans

After the first contact in May 2021 together with the technology partner i4F a large-scale product evaluation at the Hymmen technology center in Rödinghausen, Germany started. In November 2021 contracts were signed and the plant project could be realized including the detailed engineering, production, shipping, and mechanical and electrical installation. The start of production was in August 2023. 

“From the beginning of the project the cooperation between the teams of Engineered Floors and Hymmen was very close. Upcoming challenges could be solved easily in the transparent and trustful atmosphere by the involved experts of both sides,” emphasizes Dr. René Pankoke, CEO and managing partner of Hymmen.

“Digital print LVT is the future and at Engineered Floors and the future is now! Our pure grain HighDef LVT is the next generation of hard surface flooring. We will move the industry forward together with this latest innovation,” points out Mike Sanderson, VP Product Marketing at Engineered Floors. Engineered Floors counts on the Hymmen technology and already plans to widen the Atlantic-crossing partnership by increasing their capacity with the German machine and plant manufacturer.

For more information on the technology, contact Dr. Anke Pankoke at [email protected].