Canon is hoping to lure customers from the large-format offset market with a top-secret Océ inkjet device co-developed with Memjet, codenamed 'Project Velocity'.

The machine is on display at the Canon stand (Hall 8a, stand C06–1), where customers can see it blaze through large-format work such as maps and posters at a lightning-fast 500 A0-format sheets per hour.

This speed is thanks to Memjet’s printheads, and means the Velocity is more than four times as fast as Océ’s next quickest wide-format printer, the ColorWave 650, which is being launched at drupa 2012.

The ColorWave 650 and 650 Poster Printer models, which use Océ’s Crystal Point toner pearl technology, offer a productivity improvement of around 20% over the earlier 600 series.

The Velocity features an array of five Memjet heads to offer resolutions of 1,600x800dpi by applying more than 3 billion drops of ink per second.

Michael Boyle, international marketing director at Océ, said the extreme speed of the Velocity presented not only an upgrade path for wide-format digital shops but for offset printers seeing increasing demand for short runs and variable data.

He added that the Velocity was also a highly productive machine; its roll media handling system is based on technology from the ColorWave 6 series and give it a capacity of 1,200 metres.

It runs a true Adobe PDF workflow, with user interface based on the VarioPrint 6320 and the PowerM controller from the ColorWave family.

The Velocity has been tested on substrates from 65-175gsm, though Boyle stressed the machine at drupa is a technology demonstration and will be further developed before it ships.

Thanks to Memjet printheads, the Velocity is more than four times as fast as the new Océ ColorWave 650