Canon has completed more than 1000 global customer installations of its Colorado roll-to-roll wide format printer series, powered by UVgel technology.
Since September 2019 the installed base of the Colorado 1640 and 1650 printers achieved combined monthly print volumes of over one million square metres. Placements of the Colorado printers are growing rapidly and each installation is producing higher volumes than initially forecast, with 16% of customers printing more than 25,000 square metres per year on each Colorado device.
Feedback from Colorado 1640 users underlines the printer‘s extreme productivity and suitability for applications where robust short-term graphics are needed without lamination. Commenting on the throughput of the Colorado 1640, Bartosz Swiderski, owner at graphic art production studio Studio Bell (Poland), says: “The Colorado 1640 is a very efficient machine — the approximate speed of 40 m²/hour is more than four times higher than we have been able to offer our customers before. This means that instead of printing one wall covering project for an office customer within four days, I can print it now within one day.”
Earlier this year at FESPA 2019, Canon introduced the Colorado 1650 as the second member of the Colorado family, with a new flexible ink for customers producing applications that need to be folded, wrapped or bent such as framed canvasses, soft signage, front- and back-lit graphics, surface décor applications such as flexible wall coverings, and outdoor applications including vehicle graphics. The newer model also features unique FLX finish technology. This enables customers to choose between gloss or matte effects without the need to change ink or media, offering an even wider range of applications.
One of these is print service provider De Resolutie in The Netherlands. Jeffrey Vermaat, co-owner at De Resolutie, explains: “We look for printers that allow us to combine different materials so we can develop new products and concepts - that's our strength. We can print a gloss effect on matte papers, in colour, and a matte effect on glossy media. These applications bring many new business opportunities for us in interior design.”
Constantin Serban, Director of Graphics Technologies at The Freeman Company (US) has recently expanded his Colorado fleet and now has 10 Colorado 1640 devices and 10 Colorado 1650s. During the PRINTING United 2019 exhibition, The Freeman Company was named the Leading Customer 2019 by Canon, having the most Colorado printers installed worldwide.
Dirk Brouns, Vice President Large Format Graphics, Océ Technologies, a Canon Company comments on the market interest for both models: “We‘re working in a dynamic market with constantly evolving application requirements. Our R&D philosophy is to listen and work closely with our customers and partners to focus our innovation on actual customer demand. After the initial success of the Colorado 1640, we identified further growth opportunities for customers who can benefit from a matte finish and a more flexible ink. With both the 1640 and the 1650 solutions in the Colorado family, we can now meet any roll-to-roll print need.”
He continues, “Our customers are reaping the rewards of our strategic innovation programme, in which we have focused on developing our own large format print engine, our own unique UVgel ink and our own print heads. As one of the few digital printer manufacturers capable of doing this, we’ve created an optimised production technology that perfectly meets the needs of the market.”
