The new Colorado M-series is designed with low total cost of ownership and rapid return on investment in mind, thanks to the ability to produce high-value applications, and the unique modular upgrade options.
The new Colorado M-series is a modular 1.6m roll-to-roll printer with two speed configurations and also features Canon UVgel white ink, boosting the printer’s unmatched productivity and substantially expanding the range of applications that customers can create.
Retaining Colorado’s industrial build quality, the new M-series design is based on a single platform that can be configured to customers’ needs and grow with their business, with easy in-field upgrades. The scalable series includes two base models (M3 and M5) offering a choice of output speeds (cruising speed of 29sqm/hr and 40sqm/hr and maximum print speed of 111sqm/hr and 159sqm/hr, with the option to upgrade from one model to the other. Both printers can be easily upgraded to ‘W’ versions for white ink (M3W and M5W).
The introduction of a white UVgel ink maximises the scope for customers to benefit from UVgel’s renowned performance advantages for a full spectrum of premium graphics and décor applications – for example window graphics, labels and wallpaper. With this addition, and with new media detection sensor technology for easy media handling, Colorado M-series customers can expand their typical product offering using heavy structured, transparent, coloured, reflective and magnetic materials.
The unique gel formulation of Canon UVgel ink translates to fast build-up of dense and opaque white images in fewer passes than with conventional printing technologies, and printed output maintains its original whiteness over time. UVgel’s particular properties also eliminate many of the production, nozzle-cleaning and maintenance issues commonly associated with white ink, offering smooth, error-free printing, minimising ink usage and waste, and maximising productivity.
Customers can also choose the popular FLXfinish+ option with their Colorado M-series printer, allowing them to add matt, gloss or mixed matt and gloss on the same print, without additional varnish. High-volume customers can automate the print-to-finish process with a UVgel Print Factory or UVgel Wallpaper Factory configuration, which seamlessly integrates the Colorado M-series printer with cutting, rewinding, taping or sheet stacking to manage volumes of at least 50,000sqm per year with minimal operator time.
Pieter Pieters, Business Development Manager, B2B Pro Print and LFP at Canon South Africa said, ‘Ever since they burst onto the market, Colorado printers with UVgel ink have set the highest bar for speed, quality and all-round productivity. On top of these business-critical performance criteria, customers today want to make smart, environmentally-responsible investments in large format graphics printing solutions that can evolve with them and help them tap into lucrative creative applications, products and markets. With the addition of an easy-care white ink option, the new modular Colorado M-series is the growth engine that businesses need to level up their capabilities and turn ideas into reality.’
Canon UVgel ink delivers pin-sharp image quality and consistent colour, while its instant drying properties enable immediate cutting and finishing, and its ultra-durability removes the need for lamination. Like previous Colorado models, the M-series is designed to handle the workload of multiple legacy roll-to-roll printers, with industrial-grade round-the-clock reliability and unattended printing with minimal operator intervention. The new M-series Colorado printers are supported by PRISMAguide XL, the easy and powerful make-ready software, which results in effortless production runs with consistently high quality.
Compared to other ink technologies such as latex or eco-solvent inks, UVgel technology consumes up to 40% less ink to build up the same image quality and color intensity. The low-heat, energy-efficient LED curing system and ‘instant-on’ operation results in reduced energy use compared to other technologies. Furthermore, with UVgel technology, customers can print on environmentally responsible materials such as PVC-free and paper-based media, even uncoated. This means the Colorado M-series printer fits perfectly in a sustainability-conscious organisation.
The Colorado M-series is available immediately via accredited partners as well as Canon’s direct sales organisations.
Pieters expanded on the numerous benefits of the series, such as that it can be suited to the user’s environment, as well as its self-sustaining system, with less use of ink to print, a strong focus on total cost of ownership, and less wastage than competitive devices on the same volumes, ‘This is important because if you have a harmful solvent type of ink and you need to dispose of it, it is an issue, especially in an African landscape, because we’re not really geared like the Europeans to take care of harmful waste materials.’ Because it uses full pigment ink, it’s also much more adaptable to a wider variety of media.
In terms of the choosing between the M3 and M5 models, it is all about what the requirement of the business model is, and it’s all about the expected volume, ‘The modularity is about what you want to add to the machine – double side printing or a second tray for loading a second roll, which means you can auto switch between two types of media, but then there is also the option for white ink printing. If you don’t want white ink, you don’t have to use it, if that’s not in your business model.’
Mathew Faulkner, marketing and innovation wide format Canon Europe said, ‘The Colorado is a highly productive device, and we often see this replacing two or three devices of other technologies to bring that level of productivity and for regular applications such as banners, posters, window graphics and more specialist areas like decor.’
‘It has a modular element where you can start with the base models, like the M3, and then upgrade that to an M3W, with white ink. When you think about our customer profiles, like those who are looking to step into roll-to-roll printing and to build up their print volumes, they would start with the M3 or the M3W and then as time progresses and as their work volumes increase, they can step up into the higher productivity M5 and M5W, which can be upgraded in the field, but also then even to the factory level with our UVgel Print Factory and the Wallpaper Factory. So that modularity and scaling up of the business through the needs of our customers will be a great advantage not only in the African market but the rest of our territories as well.’
CANON SOUTH AFRICA
CZA-Marketing@canon.co.za
http://www.canon.co.za
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