Canon wins Seven Pinnacle Awards

Canon’s wide-format production printing technologies have again been recognised in the annual PRINTING United Alliance Pinnacle Awards, with six Pinnacle Product Awards and one Pinnacle Technology Award.

The Colorado M-series won the Roll-to-Roll/Hybrid/Flatbed new technology category. At the same time, the Arizona 135 GT, 1380 GTF, 1380 XTF, 2380 GTF and 2380 XTF made a clean sweep by winning each of their five respective UV/Latex Flatbed categories. Additionally, Canon also won the Pinnacle Technology Award for the recently launched Canon UVgel White Ink.

“We’re thrilled to have once again been honoured with multiple Pinnacle Product Awards by the PRINTING United Alliance, and it’s very rewarding to be acknowledged across a diverse range of output technology categories. The wide format graphics market is driven by innovation, and Canon’s consistently high ranking in the objective quality criteria for these awards is a testament to our commitment to research and development. We’re confident that our Colorado and Arizona product lines will continue to enable users to boost profits, expand their application possibilities and open up new market opportunities,” says Dirk Brouns, Vice President of Large Format Graphics at Canon Production Printing.

In the product categories, the Colorado M-series was selected for the Roll-to-Roll/Hybrid/Flatbed New Technology Award and the Canon UVgel White Ink won the Pinnacle Technology Award.

Canon launched the Colorado M-series, a modular roll-to-roll printer with two-speed configurations and UVgel white ink option, in March 2023. Based on a single platform that can be configured to customers’ needs, the printer offers easy in-field upgrades, giving users the option to enhance their printer in line with their changing requirements. Customers can also benefit from the unique performance advantages of UVgel and print a wider spectrum of applications with the introduction of white UVgel ink. UVgel’s unique formulation produces dense, opaque white images in fewer printing passes and with fewer production issues and nozzle-cleaning and maintenance requirements often associated with white ink. This all results in smooth, error-free prints with minimal waste and optimal productivity.

This year the Arizona printers won all five of the UV/Latex Flatbed categories entered.

• Arizona 135 GT – UV/Latex Flatbed (under $100K)
• Arizona 1380 GTF – UV/Latex Flatbed ($100K – $200K)
• Arizona 1380 XTF – UV/Latex Flatbed + White ($100K – $200K)
• Arizona 2380 GTF – UV/Latex Flatbed ($200K – $500K)
• Arizona 2380 XTF – UV/Latex Flatbed + White ($200K – $500K)

Dawn Nye, Program Manager for Pinnacle Awards, PRINTING United Alliance, adds, “The Pinnacle Technology Award competition represents the entry that is truly innovative and most likely to have a significant impact among commercial hardware, software, consumables, and industrial and screen equipment. One of the things I like best about our competition is that it is juried, and judges base their decisions on objective criteria. This year, the competition was fierce and, with outstanding entries like the Colorado and Arizona, the judges had their work cut out for them.”

In the past three years, Canon has announced multiple developments across the Arizona portfolio, including innovations in the Arizona 2300 series in 2020, the launch of the Arizona 135 in 2021 and, more recently, the introduction of FLOW technology to the Arizona 1300 series in 2023.

Designed for low maintenance, the Arizona family has automation enhancements that provide users with the capability to support industrial productivity standards and improve uptime. The latest Arizona models feature award-winning, third generation VariaDot printing technology, delivering high quality, greyscale image reproduction. And with FLOW technology, a Canon innovation that combines a zoneless, multi-origin flatbed with mirrored, pneumatic registration pins, it is quicker and easier to change between boards of any size or shape.

Open to all PRINTING United Alliance supplier members, the Pinnacle Product Award competition evaluates commercially available products in 2023. This year, over 160 entries across 58 categories, covering analogue, digital, output and non-output technologies, were judged by a qualified panel of experts from the printing industry.