Unveiled by the company today (27 February), the first day of the four-day specialist trade show in Lucerne, Switzerland where the series is receiving its global debut, the ProStream 3000 is built on the established ProStream technology platform.
The manufacturer said the series delivers consistent offset print quality and brings a wider selection of substrates, including heavyweight paper, up to higher rated print speeds, “enabling ultra-fast digital production of a broader range of commercial print jobs”.
These capabilities, it said, would make it easier for printers – including general commercial and online printers, book producers, and photo product specialists – to migrate high-volume, high-value work from offset and legacy technologies. Applications range from direct mail and books to postcards, posters, and calendars.
The series features two models, the 80m/min ProStream 3080 and the 133m/min ProStream 3133. Both engines can print onto web widths up to 558mm and for page lengths up to 1,524mm.
The ProStream series can print up to 11,300 4/4 B2 sheets per hour or 1,790 A4-size 4/4 impressions per minute, equating to 58 million A4 impressions per month, on a wide range of substrates and weights, including standard offset coated, uncoated, and inkjet-optimised papers up to 300gsm, without the need to slow down significantly for heavier media weights.
To deliver offset quality at higher speeds across a wider range of substrates, Canon said the printers incorporate an enhanced drying system. This, it said, builds upon the ProStream 1000 series, which uses air floatation throughout the paper path to protect the surface quality of the printed output at all stages.
The ProStream 3000 series’ new asymmetric design dries all jobs evenly and in a controlled way without coming into contact with the paper, “ensuring exceptional quality even on the most scratch-sensitive media”, Canon said.
The manufacturer added consistently high quality with accurate, vibrant colour is delivered by native 1,200dpi piezo drop-on-demand printheads in combination with water-based polymer pigment inks and Smart ColorGrip, a new version of Canon’s paper conditioning technology.
“With Smart ColorGrip, which is also now available as an option for the ProStream 1000 series, the amount of ColorGrip solution applied can be customised to specific areas of the page to adjust for heavy or light ink coverage, delivering optimal printed results,” Canon stated.
Canon’s Inline Quality Control, a high-performance camera system, also provides automatic print quality assurance, reducing the time needed for operator quality control and improving overall system productivity.
Due to the increased efficiency of the drying system, the new ProStream consumes less energy than the 1000 series for most applications and can be connected to a lower rated power connection, making it suitable for smaller print businesses.
Additionally, the drying and cooling units and the power supply have been relocated in the new product’s architecture, improving accessibility and operability for the operators.
Jennifer Kolloczek, European planning, marketing and innovation senior director for production print at Canon Europe, said: “Customers worldwide have already embraced ProStream’s exceptional productivity for everything from high-margin books to premium direct mailing jobs – while benefitting from minimal waste and very high uptime.
“With the launch of the new ProStream 3000 series, we’re further expanding this successful platform, delivering the speed, efficiency and media versatility printers need to energise their growth.
“The enhanced productivity on a number of applications means that users can now confidently migrate even more offset and other print work to digital on-demand, reducing turnaround, slashing makeready time and waste, making today’s shrinking run lengths more profitable and meeting brand owners’ demands for shorter time to market.”
The first ProStream 3000 will be installed at Pixartprinting Group in Italy, joining the company’s existing line-up of three ProStream 1800 printers. The business said this investment would fulfil its OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) requirements and enable it to migrate more work to inkjet.
The ProStream 3000 series is being exhibited in live production workflows of a range of commercial print applications at Hunkeler Innovationdays. The series is available immediately, either directly from Canon or from its accredited channel partners, depending on the territory.
Canon said interested parties should contact their local representatives for pricing, which the company said is dependent on configuration but would range from €1.8m (£1.59m) to €3-4m, depending on the complexity of the finishing.
Separately, Canon has bolstered its varioPrint iX-series sheetfed inkjet presses with new software to enable the varioPrint iX2100 and iX3200 to deliver higher performance in terms of image quality, efficiency, and productivity.
Software release R4.3, Canon said, will give customers the ability to bring the advantages of short-run or personalised digital printing to more applications, such as premium direct mail and high-quality, image-rich books. This is achieved through a new, automatic image quality verification system, which scans every sheet to check the quality and dynamically makes system adjustments as needed.
Other performance advances include the automatic customer media validation process (MVP) for the easy setup of new media with the support of a wizard, as well as improved detection of potential multi-sheet feeds in the paper input module (PIM), which diverts detected sheets to the sentry bin. No operator intervention is required, and production continues uninterrupted.
The update also brings a raft of workflow benefits with the Canon PrismaSync controller such as SMB hot-folder support, subset support via JDF, media handling for two-sided media with different front/back treatment, and improved encrypted disk support.
The software-driven release is retrofittable to all varioPrint iX devices and will be rolled out to customers starting in March.
