Canon springboards Arizona 6100 Series in Australia

Sign and display printers running off more than 30,000sqm of rigid media a year now have a new option for fast, high volume work; Canon is bringing an all-new Arizona series platform to market.

Made up of the six-colour Océ Arizona 6160 XTS and seven-colour Océ Arizona 6170 XTS, Canon says the Arizona 6100 Series aims to extend the technology to new levels of productivity and opens up Arizona’s quality, various applications and usability to high volume rigid printing players.

Dale Hawkins, category manager for Canon Australia, says, “A great many Australian printers that started out with an Océ Arizona have since grown their business dramatically with Canon by their side.

“The new Océ Arizona 6160/6170 XTS models enable them to continue with Canon on that journey in the next phase of their business growth. The speed, productivity, workflow and ease of use of the 6100 series is perfectly suited to high volume Australian printers who may have been impressed with Arizona print quality in the past, but need something more productive to handle the larger volumes.”

The series features an extra-larger 2.5m x 3.05m vacuum flatbed table to keep media and objects stationary during printing. Canon says it prints on odd-shaped, heavy, smooth or pre-cut rigid media and can handle multi-layer applications and double-sided prints, large prints tiled over multiple boards and edge-to-edge printing.

The table has two independent printing zones, each with its own vacuum system, for simultaneous printing and media loading and unloading, so one board can be staged and ready while the other is being printed – for non-stop production.

Canon says a single operator can service two printers at once, producing almost 50 boards an hour in production mode.

The 6100 Series features almost 27,000 piezoelectric nozzles in a seven-row printing carriage, to achieve inkjet print output at speeds up to 155sqm an hour. A newly designed Automated Printhead Maintenance System provides hands-free printhead cleaning in less than 25 seconds per colour.

The systems use Océ VariaDot printing technology standard with the Arizona range, and Active Pixel Placement Compensation adjusts the printing for uniform geometry across the flatbed.

Two additional ink channels are available for white ink application support and future use, and a handware and software interface allows the machine to be integrated with third-party automation and workflow systems.

Hawkins adds that Australia is an important market for the Arizona, with the 4000th sold to a Sydney customer this year. He says, “Australian display printers were consulted early on in the products initial development and Australian customers were privileged to attend our Vancouver R&D centre to experience a special preview of the product under strict confidentiality agreement well before its product release later this year.”

Canon Australia will take initial orders for the 6100 Series in May, with a formal launch planned around September or October.

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