Canon Takes Capabilities of Colorado M-series UVgel Printer to Next Level with Multiple Innovations

Drupa, Düsseldorf, Germany, 27^th May 2024 – Building on the global success of the Colorado M-series, the modular 1.6m roll-to-roll printer with optional UVgel white ink[1] launched last year, Canon today expands the appeal of the M-series with multiple innovations, offering both new and existing customers an expanded application range and opening opportunities to enter new market segments, such as packaging and industrial print.

For converters looking for a financially viable alternative to outsourcing very short runs of printed packaging or for print service providers wanting to explore packaging applications at low risk, the new UVgel Packaging Factory extends the Colorado’s already broad application capabilities to deliver the digital equivalent of litho lamination. Producing customized printed sheets of liner material for subsequent lamination to a corrugated base substrate, the UVgel Packaging Factory can create impactful printed packaging for retail, consumer and luxury goods.

The integrated system comprises a Colorado M5W roll-to-roll printer with a Fotoba jumbo roll media loader and output trimmer and stacker. It can handle a jumbo roll (up to 2,000 meters long) of the same media used in litho lamination, delivering sheets of high-quality, instantly dry and highly scratch-resistant output at up to 159m²/hr. The FLXfinish⁺ option with the Colorado M-series offers further design creativity, enabling the addition of matte, gloss or mixed matte and gloss on the same print, without additional varnish. As with offset printed sheets, the digitally pre-printed sheets can be handled via the regular litho lamination process. And with the UVgel Packaging Factory’s high level of automation, print jobs can be left running unattended.

A new feature now available for the Colorado M-series printer is FLXture, a five-ink-layer printing technology that adds micro-texture to large format prints for subtle surface detail, copying the luxurious and sensory feel of materials such as wood and leather. Creative print applications can be designed with an easy-to-use recipe in PRISMAguide XL software, which intelligently prepares the layers of UVgel ink for printing. Whether the requirement is for a subtle background texture, elegantly embossed lettering or to highlight parts of an image on high-value packaging, labels or other products, FLXture can enhance printed applications with additional surface textures without complicated combinations of different materials.

The capabilities of the Colorado M-series and UVgel now also extend to industrial print applications, specifically printing graphic overlays for membrane switches, which are printed electronic circuits that use pressure to open and close a circuit. Printed on a polymer substrate, such as polyester or polycarbonate, the ink used for graphic overlays needs to be hard-wearing and flexible to prevent delamination. In these aspects, UVgel technology excels, being robust enough not to require laminating in many instances, and being specifically developed with the elasticity for printing on flexible media without cracking.

In a further step to maximize productivity by reducing the need for roll changes for longer jobs, a new Jumbo Roll Interface kit enables the Colorado printer to handle jumbo rolls of all types of media, including transparent, structured, metallic and dark-colored media.

Dirk Brouns, Vice President Large Format Graphics at Canon Production Printing, comments: “Offering the unique benefits of Canon’s UVgel technology, the Colorado was designed right from the start to deliver the optimal combination of quality, productivity, automation, application range, operating cost and sustainability. The system’s resulting success in the market showed what a great combination of benefits it offers and, together with customer feedback, inspired us to develop the modular Colorado M-series. Launched last year, the M-series has, in turn, raised the bar for productivity and substantially expanded the range of applications that customers can create.

“And we’re not stopping there. Leveraging the benefits of UVgel technology and the modularity of the Colorado M-series, the advances we’re announcing today focus on application diversification and automation. With these and future advances, we’ll continue to deliver innovations that provide our customers with competitive advantages by increasing their capabilities and helping them to tap into new profitable creative applications, products and markets, such as packaging and industrial print.”

The UVgel Packaging Factory is being shown on the Canon stand in hall 8a at drupa 2024. In close collaboration with partners Fotoba (hall 9) and Lamina (hall 12), Canon will demonstrate the complete end-to-end process – from printing to laminating and cutting into the final packaging application.

For more information about the Colorado M-series, please go to: https://cpp.canon/products/colorado-series/

[1] Nearly 90% of customers have taken the white ink option when investing in a Colorado M-series.