Canon showcased a range of high specification sheetfed toner and inkjet presses, continuous feed inkjet presses, and roll-to-roll and flatbed wide format printers, supported by its own and third-party workflow and finishing solutions. The key message for PSPs was that they need to match technology innovation with a commitment to transforming business models and inspiring customers with creative and even disruptive ideas.
Jeppe Frandsen, executive vice president, Canon Europe, comments: “Since Canon first entered the production print market, we have set out to challenge the sector’s perceptions of what digital technology can do, to inspire printers to push their boundaries and to support them with the technology innovation and expertise to transform their business. Since drupa 2012 we have substantially expanded our portfolio including inkjet and wide format, so that today Canon offers the widest portfolio of solutions in the industry. we can demonstrate that digital print is a viable option for almost every application, right across the quality spectrum and for a wide range of media.”
Océ Arizona 2200 series of UV flatbed printers
The Océ Arizona 2200 series of UV flatbed printers – the Océ Arizona 2260 and 2280 – has been designed for print service providers to expand beyond sign and display applications into the photographic and fine-art market. The flatbed architecture offers edge-to-edge and double-sided printing on rigid media including unconventionally shaped, heavy, smooth or pre-cut media. A roll media option enables printing on flexible media up to 2.2 meters wide.
Four, six or eight colour channels allow users to select the best colour configuration for their business, making the devices suitable for functional or photographic applications. Light cyan and light magenta colors have been added for smoother colour transitions, highlights and quarter tones.
Océ PlotWave 345, 365, 450 and 550 large format printers
Four new monochrome large format devices, the Océ PlotWave 345, 365, 450 and 550, were launched, aimed at handling large sets of technical documents for busy workgroups across architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and manufacturing industries.
The Océ PlotWave 345 and 365 are designed for small and medium workgroups, printing up to 6 A1 or D-size prints per minute. The Océ PlotWave 450 and 550 meets the needs of larger workgroups, printing 10 A1 or D-size prints per minute.
New partnerships with Plockmatic and BDT
A new partnership with Swedish finishing solutions provider Plockmatic Group extends Canon’s range of inline finishing solutions. The partnership covers two Plockmatic devices – the BLM 50 and BLM 35 Production Booklet Makers – enabling Canon customers to produce stapled or square-fold booklets of up to 200 and 140 pages respectively, at rated engine speeds. Both models can handle coated, uncoated and textured stocks up to 350 gsm. Both Plockmatic booklet makers will be commercially available to Canon customers from September 2016 and will initially be compatible with the Canon imagePRESS C800, C700, C10000VP and C8000VP presses.
Canon Europe has also partnered with German media handling specialists BDT Print Media to develop an integrated solution for users of the imagePRESS C10000VP and C8000VP production colour presses to produce banner format applications at high volumes.
Integrating BDT’s VX-Series feeder with the imagePRESS production engines extends the range of applications that can be produced on the press, such as dust jackets for books, 6-page A4 folders, A4R landscape brochures, calendars, posters and so on.
The BDT VX-Series banner feeder can handle stacks up to 500mm and works with media from 60 to 350gsm, and paper lengths up to 762mm. The feeder incorporates BDT’s patented Tornado ‘whirlwind’ technology for media separation, lift and transport, ensuring sensitive and reliable handling of a full range of media, including coated and uncoated paper and board, textured substrates and synthetics. Media feed parameters for repeat jobs can be stored in the device’s memory, enabling automatic setup to reduce job changeover times for optimum productivity.
Voyager – new prototype inkjet photo press
Based on newly developed Canon inkjet technology, the seven-colour prototype B2+ duplex press is aimed at print service providers producing high added-value applications, such as catalogues, brochures, marketing materials and customer publications for luxury brands, real estate, food and travel where the quality of image reproduction is paramount. It could also be used for the production of classic photographic applications such as premium quality photo books, single photos and commemorative prints.
View & Cut – new prototype workflow automation for wide format finishing
The view & cut technology is the result of a collaborative project between Canon and Zünd Skandinavien to further automate the finishing of printed output from Canon wide format printers on the Océ ProCut G3 and S3 flatbed devices.
The solution incorporates Canon’s EOS imaging technology in a ceiling-mounted system, which recognises proprietary registration marks on the printed media to automatically identify jobs on the flatbed surface. The view & cut technology converts this data to an instruction to the Océ ProCut Vision software, which then processes each job on the ProCut surface based on its individual finishing specifications, including cutting, creasing and kiss cutting.
The co-development of the view & cut technology sets out to dramatically reduce manual operator intervention at the finishing stage, and to semi-automate finishing of both sheet and roll output from one or more Canon wide format print engines. It offers the ability for PSPs to nest multiple jobs on sheets or rolls and to automate the finishing of these jobs.
