EFI announce single-pass inkjet press for corrugated board

The press is said to reach speeds up to 75 linear metres (246 linear feet) per minute.

 

In addition to speeds, the new technology gives users the benefit of a low acquisition price with significant total cost of ownership advantages.

 

This breakthrough innovation appears in one of the first digital inkjet presses designed from the ground up to establish new standards of productivity and innovation in corrugated packaging which EFI claims to be its ‘biggest inkjet product development to date’.

 

The 1.8m-wide EFI Nozomi C18000 inkjet press will help corrugated manufacturers and brands access a wide colour gamut and broader design options in corrugated board work with fast turnaround times, all while maintaining low production costs.

 

The sheet fed, digital packaging press has run speeds up to 8,100sqm/hr and can print on boards up to 1.8mx3m in size. Users will gain superior versatility thanks to a double-lane printing feature that enables full utilization of the press's speed and width and increases throughput up to 9,000 80cmx60cm boards per hour. The press's LED imaging capabilities provide colour imaging on just about any board substrate, including traditional Kemi, model, bleach and kraft materials.

 

"EFI's next generation of innovation brings to market the strongest combination of versatility, imaging quality and production speeds at a total cost of ownership that is far below similar single-pass platforms," said Guy Gecht, CEO of EFI.

 

"When commercially available next year, the Nozomi C18000 press will finally give the corrugated packaging market a unique solution to establish a profitable business around on-demand, customized digital printing," he added.

 

According to the release, ‘this new EFI LED inkjet press has been designed from the ground up specifically for a $130 billion corrugated packaging industry that has more than 200 billion square meters of printed output per year’ - a figure that is more than 25-times greater than the estimated amount of annual signage and graphics output produced.

 

The press release said, ‘To create the press, EFI combined some of the best features from many of its leading-edge development operations, including precision, single-pass inkjet imaging systems from U.S.-based EFI Jetrion digital press facilities and the company's Cretaprint ceramic decoration printer operations in Spain; advanced LED inkjet innovations from EFI's global ink development centres; super wide-format press technology from the company's U.S.-based VUTEk operations; scalable Fiery digital front end (DFE) processing and management technology from EFI's Silicon Valley development centre; and cloud-based remote diagnostics and support advancements from the company's Bengaluru, India, technical hub.

 

In addition to the new corrugated packaging press, EFI will incorporate its core Nozomi inkjet technology platform into new, high-volume printers for the signage market and other industries.

 

"We are proud to announce that printed output for the EFI Nozomi C18000 press received certification for OCC recyclability and re-pulpability from the Western Michigan University Recycling, Paper and Coating Pilot Plant," said EFI's Gecht.

 

The new Fiery DFE for the Nozomi C18000 press also will completely integrate with MES and ERP technologies in EFI's Packaging and Corrugated Packaging Suites, as well as with Esko workflows, for streamlined management, including dynamic scheduling, shop-floor data collection and more.

 

‘EFI is the only digital press manufacturer to offer fully integrated top- and bottom-feed options for a digital corrugated packaging press, using a patented system that also handles media separation, lift, transport and alignment at full press speeds with programmable features for faster, automatic feeding configurations on repeat jobs,’ adds the release.

 

EFI is planning to start installations of Nozomi C18000 presses within the next 12 months.