Symara chooses the Epson Surecolor SC-F7100 printer for peak performance

Symara Knitwear is a privately owned, independent South African company, established more than 60 years ago, that produces a wide range of knitwear and custom-printed sportswear for the local market.

The company has built an outstanding reputation for superior quality and produces garments for schools, corporates and sporting teams.  

When Symara started its range of products printed with dye-sublimation techniques to meet demand for customised athletic clothing, it purchased a selection of dye-sublimation machines from China. When the first set of machines did not deliver on Symara’s high quality standards, and they were disappointed by the after-sales service offered by that brand, they sought another solution in the form of a generic copy of a well-recognised brand. When that failed too, Symara turned to the advice of Graham Beck from Chemosol, an authorised Epson reseller. 

Owner of Symara, Gerrit Rautenbach, realised that there was much wisdom in the fact that dye sublimation is an art rather than a science – but he sought consistent, top quality results in his high-turnover, low margin business.

“We realised that we could not build a successful business by using unreliable equipment,” said Rautenbach. “Apart from mechanical failure, we had to keep on finding new ink suppliers, which led to our products, and the printing work we did on them, being inconsistent and of sub-standard quality.”

Chemosol suggested that Symara consider the Epson SureColor SC-F7100 to ensure high quality and consistent production values. 

The Epson SureColor SC-F7100 is ideal for fast, economical, short to medium volume dye sublimation printing at speeds of up to 58m2 per hour, and widths of up to 64 inches.

It allows users to customise a wide range of products, including clothing (from fast fashion to performance sportswear), soft signage, interior décor items, promotional merchandise, and even gadget decoration.

Epson’s dedicated UltraChrome DS inks produce outstanding images, and with the comprehensive set of production tools provided by the Ergo Soft Professional raster image processor (RIP) software supplied as standard, owners of this solution can rest assured that they will be profitable from the first day of production.

The inks are contained in an integral 1.5 litre per colour bulk ink system which is easy to fill with Epson’s one litre ink pouches. Few halts in production to top up ink tanks means more production uptime.

Epson’s UltraChrome DS ink technology means that users can produce designs featuring rich or subtle colours, with great success, and line text, lines and detailed patterns are easy to achieve. The inks’ excellent light- and wash-fastness mean that signage and apparel products maintain their impact without fading.

“We have doubled our production since we installed the Epson SureColor SC-F7100, and boosted our profitability by 30 percent, as a direct result of reduced wastage and decreased machine downtime,” says Rautenbach.

“My machine operators have seen a 100 percent reduction in their daily stress levels, because they can trust the machine to do its job, and do it well. Using Epson UltraChrome DS inks also means that they don’t struggle to cope with the strong solvent smells that they had to contend with previously.

“This is a machine that we can believe in, not only for its print quality, but also for the fact that we can rely on excellent service from Epson,” Rautenbach adds. “We are very happy with the Epson SureColor SC-F7100, and we know now that we can market our products with confidence, because we can rely on the machine. We would most certainly recommend it to manufacturers seeking a dye sublimation solution.”