Available to order now, with units shipping in the first part of 2019, the Bolt is a 1.8m-wide machine that prints directly onto textiles at speeds up to 90m/min or 8,000sqm/hr.

It made its debut at an EFI Reggiani open house in Italy last week and, according to the company, it offers high uptime and reliability, outstanding performance, superior printing uniformity and accuracy, long printhead life and minimal maintenance needs.

EFI Reggiani vice-president and general manager Adele Genoni said: “The innovation of our new single-pass digital textile printer stems from a serious commitment of listening to and addressing our customers’ needs. Before kicking off this project, we completed interviews with customers across the world back in March and April 2017.

“The need for performance, uptime and productivity, printhead reliability, and printing quality were the key takeaways from these interviews. The Bolt is for customers who need high productivity with a short delivery or turnaround time, targeting textile manufacturers, but also apparel businesses.

“We have had a great level of interest for the printer and have already received several quotations. New and existing customers at the open house were extremely impressed with the printer’s speed, accuracy and output quality. There was a uniform sound of excitement and enjoyment when the printer was in action.”

Running with the EFI Fiery digital front-end, the Bolt’s headline features include a contactless wiping system to enhance the life of its printheads, which were developed specifically for the machine and print at 600dpi resolution. A premium setting increases resolution up to 600x4,800dpi.

It is intended to compete with a number of textile printers already on the market, including the MS LaRio, the Konica Minolta Nassenger and the SPG Pike.

According to Genoni, the initial Bolt machine is the first entry in an intended product line-up that will come with future developments and variations. She alluded to paper transfer and a wider 3.4m configuration as “on our product development roadmap”.