Canon presented three digital production presses including the first public showing of the new Océ ProStream continuous feed color inkjet press. Designed to offer highest quality and extended media choice for high-volume commercial print work, the ProStream ran to rollto-roll at Hunkeler Innovationdays on a range of stock for printing direct mail, books, catalogues, and brochures. Canon also demonstrated its flagship sheetfed digital presses – the imagePress C10000VP drum and toner press and the Océ VarioPrint i300 inkjet press. The new ProStream that was actually announced three days earlier at the Oce Poing facility in Germany, is 80 metres a minute press with a 1200 dpi resolution achieved with a new Piezo head that actually has 1200 nozzles per inch. The press is squarely aimed at offset quality with droplest sizes of 2 and 5.6 picolitres and uses a new polymer based ink developed and manufactured by Océ.
There is a new flotation air dryer and the press is capable of laying down a lot of ink with coverage as high as 100% in any one color and up to 350% in a combination of four colors. Canon claims that the ProStream is able to exceed the Fogra 51 and Fogra 52 gamuts on coated and uncoated substrates respectively.
The ProStream incorporates Canon’s ColorGrip paper conditioning technology, ensuring optimal print quality on standard coated and uncoated offset papers from 60 to 160 gsm. With a printing width of 540 mm and maximum print speed of 80 metres per minute, the ProStream offers best-in-class productivity of up to 35 million A4 pages per month. The non contact flotation drying technology minimises physical stresses on the paper and leaves the printed image untouched until dry, enabling dense ink coverage for vibrant color reproduction.
Christian Unterberger, chief marketing officer and executive vice president, production printing products at Océ says, “With this new press, customers can now confidently migrate high-value work from offset to inkjet. This will enable PSPs and brand owners to exploit the full creative potential of variable data printing to elevate print’s effectiveness within dataled multi-channel campaigns.” Demonstrated at Hunkeler Innovationdays producing direct mail items, calendars, photo books and brochures, the press will be commercially available from summer 2017.
