EFI has introduced a pair of very high throughput soft signage printers, the 3.4m EFI Colors and EFI Power models, that build on the expertise of its Reggiani division to offer high volume production at up to 1564sqm/hr.

Sitting above the established FabriVu 240 and 340i models in terms of productivity, the Colors 340 can handle fabrics up to 450gsm and is said to be suitable for producing a range of high quality items from tablecloths and pop-up commercial tents to backlit displays, flags and retail fixtures at up to 800sqm/hr in ‘production’ quality; ‘PoP’ and ‘high quality’ modes reduce this to 428 and 218sqm/hr respectively . EFI says its water-based dispersed dye sublimation inks suit ‘ultra premium’ PoP applications, with smoother colour transitions and ‘ultra realistic’ skin tones.

The Colors 340 is available is a range of printhead and colour channel configurations, including CMYK x 2 or x 4, six-colour x 4 or eight-colour (CMYK plus light C, M and Y and a penetrating agent). Resolution is 2400dpi and four greyscale level printheads produce drops between 4 and 18pl which EFI says delivers 100% penetration on both sides of the fabric, making it suitable for the production of national flags. A high precision sticky belt fabric transport is claimed to give ‘near-perfect’ continuous tone image quality even at high speeds, with no wrinkle artefacts across a range of materials. This, together with the lower water content in the inks compared to alternatives, means that a wider range of materials (by weight/stiffness) and transfer papers (lighter weights) can be printed.

For faster output, the Power 340 model offers fewer colour options but with up to CMYK x 8 configurations available, can run at up to 1564sqm/hr (with proportionally similar reductions to the Colors 340 for the higher quality modes that require more passes) and brings a lower cost of ownership for those who need that kind of volume. It supports the same range of media as the Colors model. Both models are driven by a Fiery ProServer Premium DFE which handles colour and job management and provides tools for nesting, step-and-repeat imposition, scaling, cropping, barcode creation and tiling of very large products. 

The printers are manufactured at EFI’s Reggiani factory in Bergamo, Italy and are available immediately.