Inkjet & Digital Printing

Canon varioPRINT iX series: Sheet-fed inkjet printing newly applied

Monday 06. April 2020 - Impressive premiere at Canon: the varioPRINT iX series, a future-oriented sheet-fed inkjet digital printing system with iQuariusi IX technology, now complements the portfolio alongside the successful VarioPrint i series. The new system combines the print quality and wide range of media and papers from offset with the advantages of inkjet printing, namely productivity and cost efficiency. The system is ideal for customers with a monthly production volume of one to ten million A4 images.

The varioPRINT iX series can print more than 9,000 SRA3 images per hour, equivalent to a whopping 320 A4 images per minute, on a variety of media, including offset coated paper from 90 to 350 g/m². High volumes of the entire spectrum of commercial printing applications can be achieved with the new series: from marketing materials and premium direct mail to catalogues, magazines and books.
With an average machine availability of more than 90 percent and no daily calibration and maintenance, the Canon varioPRINT iX series achieves significant productivity gains and significant improvements in total cost of ownership compared to other cutsheet production printers. Two machines are available to choose from: The Canon varioPRINT iX3200 with 320 A4 ipm and the Canon varioPRINT iX2100 with 210 A4 ipm.
With more than 250 installations of the varioPRINT i series worldwide to date, Canon has established itself as the leading supplier of sheet-fed inkjet production printers for transactional applications, books and high-quality direct mail. With the new iX digital printing system, Canon is now redefining ink-based digital sheet-fed printing.
The new iQuarius iX technology, the heart of the iX series, combines three key innovations:
– A breakthrough drying system combines air and heat with humidification to protect the paper. This ensures robust prints on a wide range of media that are perfectly smooth and can be processed immediately.
– New proprietary water-based polymer pigment inks and ColorGrip for extremely vibrant and bright colors on a wide range of media, including coated papers up to 350 gsm.
– iQuarius iX quality control technology for high-end image quality thanks to true 1200 dpi image processing and jointly developed Kyocera print heads. This ensures the printing of pin-sharp text and line details at 1200 dpi, smooth gradients and perfect skin tones. Advanced nozzle uniformity control technology uses an inline scanner to automatically check and align individual nozzles during the production run. This prevents streaking. Nozzle control provides the ability to detect and automatically compensate for nozzle defects during the job. This significantly reduces downtime and waste and ensures excellent image quality.
Media transport within the system has been improved: automatic detection and sorting of faulty sheets before printing leads to higher overall precision. This also further optimizes quality and productivity. Together, these innovations provide the right balance of excellent image quality, media and application versatility, reliable productivity and cost efficiency – all in a single Canon inkjet digital printing system.
Print service providers can accelerate return on investment by making short runs profitable, changing jobs quickly and producing documents reliably on different media. This also significantly improves on-time delivery.

Peter Wolff, Vice President, Production Printing Products, EMEA Commercial Printing, Canon Europe: “The appeal of inkjet printing lies in its excellent productivity in the face of ever tighter deadlines and higher volumes for short runs that require fast changeovers. With the Canon varioPRINT iX series, there is no longer any need to compromise between quality and media versatility or between productivity and cost efficiency. Print service providers can now produce virtually any job because print quality is perfect and media diversity is assured. Fast changes in production are no problem. All this is possible with the Canon varioPRINT iX series. Customers who value a broad portfolio and want to offer high-quality applications can now expect an attractive Canon inkjet sheet-fed digital printing system. It provides the digital firepower to increase print volumes, handle smaller, more varied jobs flexibly and profitably while remaining competitive”.
The workflow is controlled by a powerful PRISMAsync print server and also optimizes productivity by automatically setting the appropriate print parameters for the selected media and optionally scheduling up to eight hours of production. When combined with Canon’s PRISMA software, a fully automated and highly intuitive solution can be integrated into any existing workflow. It covers every phase of production, from creation and print management to finishing and delivery tracking.
Christian Unterberger, Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President, Canon Production Printing, adds: “The introduction of the Canon varioPRINT iX series is a significant expansion of our product portfolio for the graphic arts market, which is of key importance to Canon. The Canon varioPRINT iX series now stands alongside Canon’s Colorado UVgel technology and the Canon ProStream 1000 continuous feed printer, providing print service providers with further arguments to choose Canon’s directional technology”.