The EFI Pro Series UV Printers and Summa F Series Cutters combine to make beautiful short-run and custom packaging. Industry experts cite a continued and increasingly strong demand for customized packaging due to increased perceived value, enhanced brand awareness, positive customer response, better product protection and efficient shipping.
For years, the combination of inkjet printers and digital cutters has been a powerful team in product creation and decoration. Custom packaging creation can be an add-on application for users carrying out such functions, or in many cases, it can be justified by itself.
Let’s start with the printing. The EFI Pro Series UV printers lineup is expansive. Each of the flat-bed or hybrid models can be a good printing packaging option for a few key reasons. First, they are all UV printers using CMYK and white ink. UV ink is necessary for quality results on a wide variety of materials like corrugated cardboard, card stock and plastics. White ink enables printing to any color substrate, be it the familiar craft brown color of cardboard or any other color.
Image quality is also an important factor. Every printer in the EFI Pro Series lineup offers fantastic photo print quality and an impressive overall color gamut. And while image quality is important, printing speed is equally essential. We all want hi-res packaging, but we can’t devote too much time to creating a product that is mostly disposed of after opening. All the Pro Series printers are fast! For example, in our video, we used the EFI Pro 30F flat-bed printer, which printed an 8’ x 4’ sheet of corrugated about every two minutes. For our box design, that equated to eight boxes!
The EFI Pro Series printers also have excellent vacuum power — a very important driver of success that often gets overlooked — to hold down materials such as corrugated. Subpar vacuum power can lead to issues when printing, as well as a high reject rate. Lastly, while this is true for all inkjet printers, the digital nature of this series of printers makes them ideal for customization and personalization. The printers are 100% capable of switching image to image without setup cost or time, even within the same sheet of the substrate material.
The Summa F-Series cutters are a fantastic choice for the cutting of packaging for reasons rooted in Summa’s flexibility, versatility and convenience. The F-Series is comprised of many different bed sizes to accommodate various size substrates and tools for cutting and creasing a range of substrate styles. This flexibility is incredibly helpful for building the cutting machine that precisely fits your needs.
The printers include a very wide variety of cutting tool options, and as a result, the F-Series is designed to cut as many roll and rigid materials as possible. Summa offers many cutting tools to ensure that you have the right tool for the job. This includes routers for thick plastics, acrylics and wood; oscillating tools for cutting foam, foam boards and corrugated cardboard; and a variety of cutting blades for cutting vinyl, plastic films and papers/cardstocks. Lastly, let’s not forget the inclusion of a variety of creasing wheel tools.
User convenience is top of mind for Summa. Their software is easy and intuitive, seamlessly working in concert with the printer software to properly print registration marks for cutting. Summa’s GoProduce software also includes a library that features hundreds of ready-to-use box and packaging templates! Additionally, the cutters hold up to three cutting tools at one time. This allows the operator to switch from one substrate to another or switch from cutting to creating without having to change out the cutter or creasing tools.
Watch our video to see these amazing machines in action. We invite you to contact us for more information. We can also offer samples and schedule in-person or remote demonstrations.
