EFI showcased its expansive portfolio of graphics solutions at Printing United, saying its range of production LED inkjet, dye-sublimation inkjet, and digital front end and workflow offerings at the show highlights advanced and award-winning technologies that give signage and display graphics businesses a stronger competitive edge.
Ken Hanulec, EFI vice-president of worldwide marketing, said, “EFI’s leading edge portfolio at Printing United is a great example of our unwavering commitment to providing customers with the best innovation advantage in display graphics and industrial inkjet printing.
“We continue to drive our customers’ growth in these spaces with the right products to help them earn more margin in more applications, and stay ahead of the game in terms of capability, efficiency, versatility and sustainability.”
Soft signage
The company said its new EFI VUTEk FabriVu Plus series of soft signage printers, including the VUTEk FabriVu 340i+ printer with inline fixation, offer the next level of high end dye sublimation efficiency and opportunity.
Soft signage is the fastest-growing application for many EFI customers, including high volume trade supplier Orbus Exhibit & Display Group, which recently purchased the VUTEk FabriVu 340+ model for its Las Vegas facility.
Orbus’ newly installed 3.4m wide high end production solution provides the company with important redundancy and production volume capacity in a rapid-growth market.
It is also one of multiple VUTEk FabriVu installations Orbus has completed to meet the increased demand it sees in tradeshow graphics and address the accelerating preference for soft signage beyond the events space.
Designed for high end direct to fabric or transfer paper production with resolutions up to 2,400dpi and three-level grayscale printing with 7, 12 and 18 picolitres drop sizes, the FabriVu Plus series achieves remarkable quality in dye-sub printing, with better saturation and more density for soft signage and flag printing, according to EFI.
Eight high performance printheads line up in in a new CMYK x 2 configuration. The inline fixation feature on the VUTEk FabriVU 340i+ model at Printing United eliminates the need for a separate heat press in direct to fabric production.
Advanced technology across the floor
Other EFI display graphics inkjet solutions at the show included:
• The 3.2m wide EFI Pro 30h hybrid roll/flatbed LED printer. Running at speeds up to 230 square metre per hour, it features four colours plus dual channels of white as standard, prints in resolutions up to 1,200 dpi, and includes an EFI Fiery proServer Core digital front end with FAST RIP acceleration technology.
• EFI said its 3.5m wide EFI VUTEk Q3r LED inkjet printer is the fastest super wide format roll-to-roll solution in its class. It adds that a new inline UltraClear Coat option offers superior protection for outdoor graphics and high-quality gloss or matte spot enhancement in premium POP work; capabilities that earned UltraClear Coat the 2022 Printing United Alliance Pinnacle Award for UV digital inks.
• The VUTEk h5 is a 3.2m wide hybrid roll/flatbed LED inkjet printer that prints at speeds up 109 boards per hour. Automated media handling options include a ¾ automated media loading and stacker system and super duty winders. EFI has launched a new corrugated media management system for the VUTEk h5 printer featuring an enhanced vacuum, material edge guides and a dynamic roller subsystem for superior board throughput.
EFI featured automation and innovation in display graphics workflows at the show, enabling customers more power to monitor production operations and printer utilisation, including exact job-level consumable tracking data to reduce downtime and costs. EFI IQ’s display graphics management and business intelligence capabilities earned it the 2022 Printing United Alliance Pinnacle Product Award for software and workflow/MIS/CRM solutions.
As the only management solution to have a direct connection to EFI printer data, IQ helps business leaders make smarter, data-driven production decisions for each wide-format printer and optimise capacity allocation across the production floor.
Another EFI display graphics workflow solution at the show, EFI Fiery Prep-it, is a cost-saving print for cut preparation software offering that can be used with any wide format digital front end. Its industry-leading innovations in true-shape nesting earned this software the Printing United Alliance Pinnacle Product Award for prepress and pre-media. With Fiery Prep-it, display graphics businesses can reduce the time needed to nest complex objects for wide-format printing by up to 90 per cent.
New digital opportunities
EFI said it has one of the broadest and strongest inkjet technology portfolios for driving the analogue to digital transformation in the display graphics, corrugated packaging, textile, and building materials/décor markets.
Printing United also featured exhibits from two EFI’s acquisitions for workflow technologies in direct to textile, direct to film and direct to garment printing. Inèdit Software, part of the EFI Reggiani textile business, showed RIP solutions for digital textile printing. CADlink Software featured its Digital Factory direct to fabric and direct to garment automation, production, and personalisation software solutions.
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