“We are targeting two types of customers, those that are already familiar with the Arizona platform and are looking to step-up, the second group are the ones that don’t know us because until now we didn’t have a machine for them, the sort of people that until now have only known Durst or Vutek or other high-volume machines,” said Pierre-Olivier Esteban, marketing director of Technical Document Systems (TDS) and Display Graphic Systems (DGS), Canon Europe.
The 6100 series is a completely new machine and has been in development for a little over three years. There are currently two machines in the range, the six-colour (CMYK+LC+LM) Arizona 6160 XTS and the seven-colour 6170 XTS, which features the addition of a single white channel.
However, the modular platform has been developed to enable the addition of an eighth channel at a later date.
Both machines feature a 2,500x3,050mm vacuum table with two independent zones for simultaneous loading/unloading and printing of boards up to 50.8mm thick. They also feature a double-beam design, incorporating glass surfaces, to ensure the stability of the 100kg print carriage.
Currently the machine doesn’t have a roll-to-roll option and Canon said that there were no plans to add it in the near future. However, Dale Mortimer, international marketing director for DGS, said that the company would look at possibly adding a dedicated roll-to-roll machine to the 6100 range in the future.
The 6100 series features Océ VariaDot technology with new unnamed 6-42pl greyscale heads, currently unique to the 6100 series. The machine is capable of up to 155m2/hr and also boasts a new automated printhead maintenance system.
The machine also features a new, as yet unnamed, inkset, which introduces “lights” for the first time on the Arizona range and was developed primarily for printing on to plastic substrates with high-adhesion requirements.
Beta machines close to the Océ wide-format manufacturing base in Vancouver, Canada are already in place and commercial shipping of the 6100 series is slated for September this year.
A seven-colour 6170 XTS is taking centre-stage on Canon’s Fespa Digital stand (B1-310), other products on display include the Océ ColorWave 900, Océ ProCut digital cutter and the imagePrograf iPF9400 wide-format printer.
Pricing for the 6100 series is currently being finalised, but Canon expects the range to be available from €300,000 to €340,000 dependent on configuration.
Canon invited more than 200 prospects to a secret demonstration of the 6100 in Vancouver, Canada last month. As a result, the first customers have already ordered their machines, with one already sold to a UK customer and several in mainland Europe and the US.
An OEM’d version of the 6100 series is also being demonstrated on the Fujifilm stand (B1-530) under the Acuity F series brand. The F series will run Fujifilm’s Uvijet inks.
