The 5.2m-wide machine, MediaCo’s first at this width, was launched at EFI’s Connect user conference in the US earlier this year and came into its Manchester site earlier this month, along with a Vutek HS125 Pro, with total investment at £1.2m.

At present it is only being used to print materials 3.2m-wide while a Monti Antonio heat press is manufactured to work alongside it, which will be up-and-running by 1 September, at which point it will start taking jobs of up to 5.2m-wide.

EFI confirmed that MediaCo was the first in the UK to take the machine and one of the first in Europe.

MediaCo has been a frequent early adopter of EFI technology since it became the first UK company to take the original FabriVU around 15 years ago.

Operations director Stephen Arthur said the group was initially considering 3.2m-wide machines and underwent a significant period of testing before purchase.

“We did a lot of testing of competitor’s equipment and in this process you are looking for image quality, print speed, colour gamut, vibrancy and contrast,” he said.

“We were looking at the output from what works and what is the optimum quality that can be achieved and that’s what steered our decision. 

“We’ve been involved in sublimation from the very early days of electrostatic through to the advent of the FabriVU and there are other technologies that have developed at 3.2m capability, some of them provide inline curing, but the one we’ve got is two separate operations, print and heat press. The reason for this was experience really.”

MediaCo has mainly opted for the machine due to its ability to print on new materials at 5m-wide without the need for seams. Dye-sublimation printers tend to print 3.2m and require seams for larger widths, which MediaCo managing director Mark Wardle said can lead to puckering, mis-registration and unsightly lines in creative backdrops.

Arthur added: “If you put in text or complex images a visible seam is not ideal. The real market here that is going to open up is for single-piece graphics in the sector.”

The machine prints at speeds of up to 446sqm/h, 242sqm/h for production image quality and 157sqm/h for POP image quality, at a maximum resolution of up to 2,400dpi. The four-colour FabriVU uses EFI’s water-based dispersed dye inks and takes a variety of media weighing between 40gsm and 450gsm. 

The HS125, which came in earlier this week, was mainly purchased to handle increases in capacity and support “new operations and contract work”, including a contract won earlier this year worth £750,000. The 3.2m-wide machine, launched in 2015, prints on rigid and flexible substrates at up to 150 boards per hour.

“We expanded the business to a 24-hour operation to create capacity from existing machines and once you’ve exhausted that the only option is to bring in faster machines that increase capacity and allow to service clients that have shorter deadlines,” said Arthur.

84-staff MediaCo, which has sales of circa-£15m, also runs four 3.2m-wide direct-to-fabric machines and one 1.6m-wide paper transfer press. Around 40% of its sales are made up from soft signage but this is expanding.

Arthur praised the development of EFI’s textile printing technology since it acquired Reggiani Macchine and Matan in 2015. 

“This is proven technology, which gives you comfort,” he added.

“If you work with EFI for many years you know the operation of the machines is user friendly, we know the technology, we know the reliability and we trust the manufacturer. So it’s all in the relationship of trust I suppose.”