LAS VEGAS – Digital print technology provider Electronics For Imaging, Inc., is showcasing its expansive portfolio of innovative display graphics solutions this week at PRINTING United Expo 2022 in the Las Vegas Convention Center. The range of EFI™ production LED inkjet, dye-sublimation inkjet, and Fiery® digital front end (DFE) and workflow offerings at the show highlights advanced, unique, and award-winning technologies that give signage and display graphics businesses a stronger competitive edge.
The new EFI VUTEk® FabriVU® Plus series of soft signage printers, including the VUTEk FabriVU 340i+ printer with inline fixation EFI is presenting at PRINTING United in booth #C8107, offers 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® – an industry leader that recently purchased the VUTEk FabriVU 340+ model for its Las Vegas facility.
Soft signage displays are setting new standards
Orbus’s newly installed, 133-inch (3.4-meter) wide high-end production solution provides the company with important redundancy and production volume capacity in a rapid-growth market. It is also one among many VUTEk FabriVU installation Orbus has completed in order to address increasing demand for tradeshow graphics and the growing preference for soft signage outside of the event space. “We have four FabriVU printers overall,” said Orbus Vice President of Print Operations Aaron Kozar, “so we must be happy with the technology!”
Designed for high-end direct-to-fabric or transfer paper production with resolutions up to 2,400 dots per inch (dpi) and three-level grayscale printing with 7pL, 12pL and 18pL 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 – thanks to new electronics as well as eight high-performance printheads in a new CMYK x 2 configuration.
PRINTING United’s VUTEk FabriVU 340i+ model has an in-line fixation feature that eliminates the need to use a separate heat press for direct-to fabric production.
The show’s new soft signage printer is one of many high-end EFI display graphics inkjet solutions.
· The 126-inch (3.2-meter) wide EFI Pro 30h hybrid roll/flatbed LED printer in EFI’s booth stands out as the ideal solution for businesses targeting production sign and display graphics as a growth opportunity. The printer can cover a distance of up to 2,477 sq. ft (230 sq. m) an hour and prints at resolutions upto 1,200 dpi. It also includes an EFI Fiery core DFE with FASTRIP acceleration technology.
· The 138-inch (3.5-meter) wide EFI VUTEk Q3r LED inkjet printer on display – the fastest superwide-format roll-to-roll solution in its class – is part of a VUTEk Q series that also includes a 208-inch (5.2-meter) wide Q5r model. A new inline UltraClear Coat option for the VUTEk Q3r, Q5r and other EFI roll-to-roll LED inkjet printers 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, a highly advanced, high-productivity 126-inch (3.2-meter) wide hybrid roll/flatbed LED inkjet printer at the show, delivers top-tier image quality at speeds up 109 boards per hour. With its automated media handling options, including a ¾ automated media loading and stacker system and super duty winders, the VUTEk h5 is ready to drive efficiency in high-quality print. EFI has developed a corrugated media management solution for the VUTEk 5 printer. This system includes an enhanced vacuum, material edge guides, and a dynamic roller subsystem to increase board throughput.
EFI partners LexJet (booth #C6407) and Nazdar SourceOne® (booth #C6425) are also showing EFI Wide Format LED inkjet printers at PRINTING United. LexJet’s exhibit features the 65-inch (1.6-meter) wide EFI Pro 16h hybrid LED printer, a system with a low total cost of ownership that delivers high-quality output at speeds up to 476 square feet (44 square meters) per hour. The EFI Pro 30f is a dedicated flatbed printer that can print up to 120×80 inches (3.05 x 2.04 meters) at a Nazdar SourceOne booth. This versatile flatbed printer can print media up to 4 inches (10 cm) thick at speeds of up to 2130 feet (198 m/h).
Innovation and automation in the display graphics workflow
EFI’s enhanced IQ™ cloud solution featured at PRINTING United gives customers more power to monitor production operations and printer utilization – including exact job-level consumable tracking data – to reduce downtime and costs. EFI IQ’s exceptional display graphics management and business intelligence capabilities earned it the 2022 PRINTING United Alliance Pinnacle Product Award for software and workflow/MIS/CRM solutions. IQ is the only management software that has a direct connection with EFI printer data. This allows business leaders to make better, data-driven production decisions and allocate capacity more efficiently across their production floor.
Another award-winning EFI display graphics workflow solution at the show, EFI Fiery Prep-it™, is a powerful and cost-saving print-for-cut preparation software offering that can be used with any wide- or superwide-format DFE. The PRINTING United Alliance Pinnacle Product Award was given to this software for prepress/premedia. Fiery Prepit allows display graphics companies to reduce the time required to nest complicated objects for wide-format printing by as much as 90% And, in head-to-head comparison with the competing solutions in the market, Prep-it’s powerful and detailed nesting capabilities saves users at least 10% in media costs.
New digital opportunities for growing market segments
EFI has one of the broadest and strongest inkjet technology portfolios for driving the analog to digital transformation in the display graphics, corrugated packaging, textile, and building materials/décor markets. Given the extended growth in applications EFI supports, PRINTING United also features exhibits from two of the company’s newest acquisitions – innovators that deliver some of the best and most respected workflow technologies in direct-to-textile, direct-to-film (DTF) and direct-to-garment (DTG) printing. Inèdit Software, part of the EFI Reggiani textile business, is showcasing its advanced offerings – including its industry-leading, worldwide benchmark RIP solutions for digital textile printing – in booth #C10337. And booth #C4918 features the latest, highly advanced Digital Factory DTF and DTG automation, production, and personalization software solutions from EFI Fiery’s recent acquisition of CADlink® Software.
“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,” said EFI VP of Worldwide Marketing Ken Hanulec. “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.”
EFI offers advanced display graphics solutions. Visit www.efi.com to learn more.