Nashville, US-based print fulfilment and distribution business Ingram Express Services (IES) has installed the world’s first EFI Vutek XT hybrid display graphics printer.
“The Vutek XT is going to change us in many ways,” said IES owner Adam Ingram. “Our capacity is going to go through the roof compared to where we are now. With this machine we’re expanding our market. Our footprint is going to change.”
IES purchased its first EFI printer in 2016. Now, along with the new XT model the company runs two hybrid and two roll-to-roll Vutek machines, including a second Vutek Q3r roll-fed UV LED inkjet printer installed earlier this year.
Founded in 1995 as a kitting, fulfilment, and distribution company, IES has grown to offer display graphics services for retailers, restaurants, and grocery and convenience stores. Plus, the company has expanded into graphics for the sports and events markets. With the XT printer – designed to drive a significant reduction in total cost of ownership with throughput exceeding 350 boards per hour – IES plans to further extend its capabilities as a high-end, high-volume display graphics provider.
“In wide-format, large jobs – while they’re great – can be very scary because you can get them in and all of a sudden you think this is a 12-15 day run,” said Ingram. “Now, for us, those jobs will be two to three days max, so we’ll be able to turn more jobs out in a quicker span.”
A multi-lane printing feature on the new XT model offers users the option to feed boards in up to three printing lanes, using the same or different print files. The machine supports roll-to-roll printing of rolls up to 1.5m in diameter, with two independent drives for two-up printing, or one collaborative drive for one-up printing.
Enhanced dual-zone pin and cure technology on IES’s XT uses LED lamps to immediately pin drops of ink on the substrate during printing, followed by a traditional UV lamp cure as the substrate leaves the printer for better uniformity, colour density, and a wider colour gamut in high-volume throughput. EFI’s new CP5G ink delivery technology on the printer delivers ink circulation, better dot placement, 5-picolitre drops and grayscale imaging, a feature set that means IES can deliver fine text imaging and near-lithographic imaging with a four-color CMYK inkset.
The ink recirculation system is leveraged from EFI’s Nozomi single-pass inkjet printer architecture and ensures continuous flow of fresh ink, at the correct temperature, always at the ready. Users can also expect to obtain a yield of more than 168m2 per litre of ink.
The EFI Fiery proServer Premium digital front end drives IES’s new XT, providing built-in production tools and colour management, along with EFI’s Fast Rip technology for accelerated file processing.
A high-throughput data channel and Fiery Sign Flow ‘every print is different’ (EPiD) technology allows IES to quickly sequence retail display graphics for optimal in-store installation. Campaigns come off the XT printer and onto the pallet in the order needed for optimal installation, based on each specific store layout, reducing the need for hand collation either at the print shop or the store.
