EFI announces more newcomers
Another two new large-format printers have been added to EFI’s line up: the Vutek GS3250LX and Rastek R3204.
The EFI Vutek GS3250LX UV printer incorporates ‘cool cure’ LED technology for increased productivity and print flexibility, leading Scott Schinlever, senior vice president and general manager of EFI Vutek and Rastek, to call it “a true breakthrough in high-speed superwide inkjet printing technology.
“The Vutek GS3250LX builds on the success of our previously released GS3200 printer. To date, we have shipped 135 GS3200 printers which have produced over 100 million square feet of output. We expect the GS3250LX to be even more productive."
The Vutek GS3250lx has true 1000dpi output and three-layer white ink printing. The LED system features instant on/off for more up-time and since there is no warm-up time required energy costs are reduced. The LED bulbs last the lifetime of the printer.
The machine can print onto a large range of substrates such as poly banner materials and some cardboard/corrugated materials by eliminating the infrared heat associated with a mercury bulb curing process. In addition, EFI said the ink curing technology delivers high adhesion so you can reduce your material costs with less expensive substrates like thinner styrene and other rolled materials.
Nick Olson, owner of PVS In-Store Graphics, is already seeing the benefits of using a Vutek GS3250LX. "We've been able to print on a much wider gamut of materials than ever before which is opening up new opportunities we couldn't pursue previously. Equally important has been the benefits of the new cool cure technology. For example, with a much lower UV cure temperature, we have been able to use thinner styrene sheets at half the cost of what we previously had to order."
The high continuous board productivity is also worth noting. With a time between boards of less than five seconds, it's possible to produce up to 55 - 1.2m x 2.4m boards per hour. The addition of a Vutek MediaMaster automated material handling system also aids the production of high-speed, high-volume jobs without manually loading materials.
Users will find that the new printer software improves overall printer performance and simplifies operation. For example, multiple jobs can be run at once across the width of the printer with the multi-queue functionality available right at the user interface. Audit information is also available on every print job (printing time, media usage, and ink usage) through bi-directional communication between the Fiery XF Rip and Vutek system. The enhanced Fiery XF 4.5 Rip enables better colour and performance, as well as easier job deployment. There is also seamless printer integration to EFI Web-to-Print and MIS solutions with native JDF connectivity.
A technology demo of the new Rastek R3204 UV-curable roll-to-roll inkjet printer took place at ISA International Sign Expo 2011 at the end of April in Las Vegas. Described as “an affordably priced printer built for users looking to capture more premium soft-signage applications” it uses true eight-level grayscale technology.
www.efi.com