Digital Digest: Canon Debuts ProStream Inkjet Press in Germany

Canon unveiled the new Océ ProStream series at a special worldwide launch event at its facility in Poing, Germany. (Click on image to enlarge)

POING, Germany — In a special worldwide launch event featuring customers from 22 countries at its facility here, Canon unveiled the new Océ ProStream series. This new series features a new approach to high-coverage, high-quality inkjet printing that takes continuous-feed inkjet technology beyond its current limits and deeper into the commercial printing and graphic arts mainstream.

The Océ ProStream prints uncoated, inkjet-optimized, gloss and matte-coated papers at a rate of 262 ft./min. It will have an initial price tag of 1.6 million Euro (approximately US$1.7 million). Canon has plans to build 25 Océ ProStreams in 2017, placing at least three by the end of the year.

The first six machines are already accounted for, according to Christian Unterberger, chief marketing officer and executive VP of production printing products, with customers from around the globe including Poland, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany.

Unterberger outlined the drivers for developing the new series. “We deliberately took a greenfield approach to design, with a commitment to create a product that would open up fresh business opportunities for commercial printers, particularly in high-growth segments such as premium direct mail and marketing collateral. The Océ ProStream delivers on this commitment, pushing inkjet even further into the commercial printing mainstream with its amazing quality and versatility.”

The Océ ProStream features:

• Printing speed of 262 ft./min. (1,076 A4/min. or 1,144 letter/min.)
• Print width of 21˝, 25˝; paper width of 22˝, 25˝
• Duty cycle of up to 35 million A4 or 37 million letter-sized impressions per month
• ColorGrip technology for printing on standard coated, uncoated and inkjet treated material at maximum quality
• Flexible simplex/duplex twin configuration concept
• Next generation imaging and controller technology
• 1,200 dpi native resolution and Multilevel Océ Head Safe concept
• Contactless drying concept

The Océ ProStream combines four completely new core technologies for continuous-feed inkjet:

1. New heads: Working with Kyocera, Canon developed the new piezo-electric drop-on-demand printheads featuring 1,200 nozzles per inch, providing true 1,200 dpi. DigiDot Multilevel technology provides drop sizes of 2 pl and 5.6 pl. The new water-cooling system for the heads provides a target ink temperature of <32°C (<89.6°F) to reduce risk of drying in the nozzle, which leads to improved jet stability over print width and time.

2. New pigment-based polymer ink: The polymer forms a “glue-layer” that “glues” the pigment onto the media, opening up the media range. It also provides strength to help humidify the ink-layer and enables high printing speeds.

A larger color gamut is realized by keeping the pigments on the substrate surface. The new pigmented polymer ink set matches or exceeds the offset color gamut.

Additionally, the flood-coated ColorGrip helps to minimize paper curl and the print gap climate for less drying in nozzle. On uncoated media, ColorGrip provides more vibrant color, less feathering, less strike-through and less mottle. For coated papers, ColorGrip provides less color-to-color bleed and less coalescence.

3. New drying: The sensitive flotation air dryer ensures that the printed paper is not touched until the print images are fully robust — there are no scratches or changes to gloss levels and minimal paper stress for maximum quality. The consistent drying of all colors over the entire paper width helps to avoid cockle, while active cooling to stabilize the printed image to reduce paper stress.

4. New usability: Especially for U.S. clients, PRISMAcontrol is a DFE for direct native PDF production and modification. While not ideal, printer job and paper setting management can be handled at the operator panel, if needed.

The new Océ ProStream has already earned an iF Design award 2017 from Germany’s iF International Forum, winning over the 58-member jury of independent experts in a competition of more than 5,500 entries from 59 countries.