The manufacturer’s new 2300 LED-UV flatbed series with roll-to-roll option features the Arizona Flow zoneless vacuum bed that eradicates the need to mask the table or tape down the media.
“This machine has revolutionary patented new features and functionality, which will change the way of flatbed printing,” said Christian Unterberger, chief marketing officer & executive vice president, PPP, Canon Production Printing.
The range is made up of two bed sizes, the 1.25x2.5m GTF and the larger 2.5x3.08m XTF. Within each format there are three channel configurations, the four-channel CMYK 2340, six-channel 2360 with CMYK plus double white or clear and the flagship eight-channel 2380 machine which also has light cyan and magenta.
The series runs one 636-nozzle variable droplet (6 to 30 picolitres) per channel, offering text down to 2pt in high definition mode and has a top speed of 95sqm/hr.
It is designed for volumes of between 10,000 and 30,000sqm per year and can handle rigid media up to 50.5mm thick and 34kg and rolls up to 240mm in diameter.
According to Canon, the 2300’s Flow zoneless vacuum bed system boosts productivity 20% over previous generations by significantly speeding up job changeovers.
Flow also enables the pre-cut shapes to be printed using the latest version, 2.1, of Canon’s Xpert job automation software which uses the job ‘recipe’ to create a media outline and print it onto the table, avoiding the ports, to enable precise placement with no masking needed.
Equally, multiple boards, up to six-up, can be printed using the Arizona’s multi-origin registration system using its pneumatic registration pins rather than traditional taping.
“With this new [Flow] teachnology there is no need to tape the media down anymore and this radically simplifies and speeds up the entire printing process,” said Dirk Brouns, vice president, Large Format Graphics.
The 2300 runs the established LED UV IJC357 inkset that is used on the Arizona 1300 XT, although Wouter Derichs, sales & marketing director, Large Format Graphics at Canon Europe hinted that it may look to introduce UVgel technology from its Colorado roll-to-roll printer onto future Arizona platforms if and when it sees “a market need”.
However, he said that with the applications currently covered with the existing Arizona platforms, there was no need at the moment, not least because the 2300 was based on four pillars: productivity, versatility, sustainability and exceptional quality – which he said the 2300 delivered.
“At the end we have one goal, to make our customers as productive as possible by reducing operator intervention, simplifying workflow and in the end that creates more time for printing and creates less waste and increased profit,” he said.
The new series, which is manufactured in Poing, Germany, is commercially available with immediate effect and, according to Derichs, the first installations are already in operation in Sweden and France.
A model is being installed at Canon’s Customer Experience Center in Birmingham next week for live and virtual demos and Canon expects UK commercial installations will begin shortly afterwards.
Pricing for the 2300 series starts at around €150,000 for the four-channel Arizona 2340 GTF up to around €225,000 for the larger format, eight-channel Arizona 2380 XTF.
Unlike some Arizona models, the 2300 will not be OEM'd to Fujifilm.
