New, High-volume EFI POWER and COLORS Printers Create Profit Opportunities in Soft Signage

Electronics For Imaging's two new printers for the high-end, high productivity soft signage market help display graphics producers reach new heights in productivity and extend their capabilities. The EFI COLORS 340 printer prints at up to 9,149 sq. ft/hr (in a four-color x 4 configuration) while providing unmatched color capabilities for premium-quality soft signage. For even higher-volume production environments, the EFI POWER 340 prints up to 16,835 sq. ft/hr.
 
Leveraging technology from EFI Reggiani’s 70-plus year legacy of best-in-class fabric printing, both new offerings have the ability to print with higher quality on a wider range of materials than other soft signage inkjet devices, with 100% penetration on both sides of the material. The printers offer added versatility and economical ink capabilities with their ability to print either direct to fabric or to transfer paper using the same inkset, eliminating the significant cost and downtime related to switching over inks.
 
“EFI, through our Reggiani division, has decades of experience bringing to market the highest quality in fabric printing in the industry,” said Scott Schinlever, COO, EFI Inkjet. “These two new printers are specifically designed to meet the most stringent quality and productivity needs in soft signage for companies that want to truly differentiate themselves in a highly competitive marketplace. With their extreme speed and reliability, the EFI POWER and COLORS printers can often replace multiple soft signage printers, producing more premium signage work with a single footprint.”
 
The new printers follow the proven market successes EFI customers have achieved with VUTEk FabriVU soft signage printers, which are among the most productive in their class for premium dispersed dye sublimation graphics. There are more than 250 FabriVU printers installed worldwide, many of them installations of FabriVU 340 and 340i models that give display graphics producers a higher-profit opportunity to enter the soft signage space. Building on that progress, EFI’s newest soft signage printers address the next level of production demand with higher throughput, more robust operation and even greater efficiency.
 
A new level of quality in premium soft signage
 
The EFI COLORS 340 printer has all the power and capability sign and display graphics providers have grown to expect from EFI, and more. It is ideal for many applications, from table throws and pop-up promotional tents to SEG backlits, flags and retail fixtures. At 11 feet wide with the ability to handle different fabrics up to 450 gr/sq. m, this printer delivers results that exceed the expectations of even the most demanding clients.
 
Using genuine EFI water-based CMYK dispersed dye inks, the printer gives users entrée into an ultra-premium point-of-purchase category for soft signage, producing smoother color transitions and ultra-realistic skin tones, unlike any other soft signage printer in the market. Available with up to 24 printheads, only the COLORS 340 offers greater versatility in color capabilities to print in four-color x 2, four-color x 4 or six-color x 4 configurations, as well as an eight-color configuration featuring standard CMYK and light CMK color inks, plus a penetrating agent.
 
Signage providers can print in production, point-of-purchase (POP) or very high quality at speeds up to 9,149 sq. ft/hr, achieving dramatic printing with a wide color gamut and rich, deep color saturation.
 
The printer’s 2,400 dots per inch (dpi) resolution with four level grayscale printing and drop sizes from 4 to 18 picoliters can deliver 100% penetration on both sides of the material, making it ideal for the production of national flags. Its precision sticky belt feeding mechanism ensures near-perfect, continuous tone image quality at high speeds with no wrinkle artifacts on a wide range of materials. And, EFI’s unique continuous ink recirculation system for textile printing improves ink yield, reducing the need to purge while eliminating downtime associated with printhead maintenance.
 
Extreme POWER meets maximum productivity needs
 
The new EFI POWER 340 digital soft signage printer has most of the capabilities of the COLORS 340 but at a blazingly fast speed of up to 16,835 sq. ft/hr.
 
The POWER 340 is also capable of printing direct-to-fabric or onto transfer paper using genuine EFI water-based CMYK dispersed dye inks. And, like the COLORS 340 model, it employs the proven, reliable sticky belt feeding mechanism. The POWER 340 features up to four colors, in either four-color x 4 or four-color x 8 configurations. With its remarkable speeds, users can profit from producing the appropriate quality at the highest speed with a lower total cost of ownership for high-volume demands.
 
Both printers employ a powerful EFI Fiery proServer Premium digital front end, which means operators can take advantage of the ultimate in color management, job management, and powerful tools for nesting, step and repeat, scaling, cropping, barcode creation and tiling.
 
With these two new solutions, soft signage producers can reduce their production footprint while also increasing their output by replacing multiple, slower devices with a single high-volume, premium-quality production powerhouse.