Océ, a technology company, to my surprise is now 130 years old. Having it’s roots in Holland, the company now boasts more than 24,000 employees world-wide, spread-out over 90+ countries. This team generates in excess of $4.5 billion in annual revenues. Here in North America, the company’s 11,000 employees generate roughly $2 billion in yearly revenues from their four divisions (document printing, production printing, wide format printing, and business services). This number will likely grow with the addition of  the first wide-format printing solution taking advantage of the company’s new, patented Crystal Point Technology, The ColourWave 600.

Driving this technology innovation, according to Patrick Chapuis, President of the Wide Format Printing Systems division of Océ North America, is the accelerated shift in the market demand for color output . As an example, Chapuis referenced Océ customers in Germany who are doing in excess of 50% of their wide-format printing in color. Helping drive the demand for color, the Crystal Point Technology offers users the best qualities of Inkjet Technology (traditional) combined with the best features of LED/Toner printing. Recall, Inkjet technology (used typically by traditional GIS customers) provides: rapid output, ease of use, affordability, and a relatively green solution.

 So what is this Crystal Point Technology you speak of…

 At the heart of the Crystal Point Technology are small, solid, berry-sized objects, otherwise known as Océ color toner pearls. Fed via gravity, the pearls essentially replace ink and are housed in a transparent (woohoo) cartridge – imagine, you can actually see how much you have left (let’s see you do that HP ;0). The crystals are solid and one can draw on paper with them, similar to using a crayon… apparently, they are environmentally sound enough that you could eat them… not suggested though!

 Once ingested by the printer, the pearls are heated to roughly 300 degrees (Fahrenheit) . The heat essentially jellifies the pear into a toner gel and is then jetted onto the media with no feathering. According to the 600’s specs, 1200 dpi resolution is provided. The final step in the process is for the toner to crystallize on to the media. A bond media is required as the jellified pearls need a fiber to grab and adhere to. Benefits of this process include:

- An immediate dry print
- Strong adhesion – try to wrinkle or scratch it, I dare ya!
- an even, semi-gloss finish.
- output is 100% UV resistant to 6 weeks – dependent on the dyes in the toner.

 Some characteristics of the Pearls:

-          available for purchase online from Océ
-          ~500 grams per cartridge at a cost of ~$400 each
-          no shelf life
-          odorless
-          up to 20,000 square feet of CAD output per cartridge

Océ CrystalPoint technology offers significant environmental benefits. The solid Océ TonerPearls used in tonergel jetting release no ozone, odor or fine powder. This makes Océ CrystalPoint technology ultra-low when it comes to emissions. (Image Credit: Oce)

The resulting, fast, dry, solid output is proudly referred to by the company as their “Solid-In, Solid-Out” solution. Essentially… Solid in – pearls – jellify – crystallize – solid-out.

 Perhaps one of the coolest, and most impressive characteristics of this technology is that no special media (like expensive, heavy, glossy paper) is needed in order to obtain a glossy or semi-glossy print… imagine the financial savings… this is huge!

 For the technologist charged with handling the machine, the toner waste is solid, resulting in simple, and clean handling when replacing the cartridges or media.

 Who’s it for?

 Before you rush out and buy one of these bad boys, you’ll need to keep in mind that the ColorWave 600 is ideally suited for mid-volume production houses that crank out at least 10-15,000 square feet of output per month (some of you may consider this to be high-volume). I’m not talking $$$ quite yet but this number will be useful in determining if this would be a cost-effective solution for you. If you start thinking about this, Océ has software that will enable any interested parties to input some numbers, trying multiple scenarios, and determining what your true costs and revenues would be if a ColourWave 600 were to be placed in your workshop.

The Océ ColorWave 600 – A Mid-Volume Workhorse

Created essentially to “ride the wave of color”, the “600” sports the following characteristics:

-          up to 6 rolls of media – 2 or 4 roll version is also an option, each providing 650 feet of paper via 2” or 3” cores
-          direct dry
-          easy load technology
-          no odor, no ozone emissions

Visit Océ for more information.