The Canon Colorado M5W UVgel printer from CMYUK is a 1.6m wide, dedicated roll-to-roll printer that has transformed the business’ production capability, allowing it to offer unparalleled speed and quality for high-volume printing.
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GMD Print&Install has invested in a Canon Colorado M5W UVgel printer from CMYUK. This 1.6m wide, dedicated roll-to-roll printer has transformed the business’ production capability, allowing it to offer unparalleled speed and quality for high-volume printing.
“It’s an integral piece of production equipment for us. It’s saved us, allowing us to keep up with demand and runs 3 to 4 times faster than the combined speed of both our existing UV printers,” says Justas Gadliauskas, founder and MD.
Canon Colorado M5W: Part of a family legacy in printing
Printing is in Justas’ DNA. His father owned a printing business in Lithuania, and as a young protégée, he absorbed the technical and commercial knowledge required to successfully produce small and wide format print and associated services.
Justas moved to the UK in 2010 and by 2015 had founded a trade services wide format graphics print installation business. BY 2022, he added in-house digital wide format UV printing capabilities to his infrastructure, and now offers both printing & installation, print-only, or installation-only services to agencies, printing businesses, plus a growing number of direct clients.
“We started slowly, demonstrating to our customers what we were capable of. Many of them were aware of my printing background and have experienced how much we strive for perfection in all we do,” says Justas.
Upgrading production
The investment in a new printer became a real necessity for the company as it was hitting full production capacity with existing equipment even with 24/7 working shifts. “We needed a production upgrade with more speed, greater quality, and the ability to produce different types of prints. The Colorado M5W offers matt and gloss at the touch of a button, and also matt and gloss on the same print. It is so versatile, and the colours are very vibrant,” says Justas.
The CMYUK connection
GMD had been purchasing materials from CMYUK for some time, which naturally led it to invest in capital equipment from the same source. “Chris Martin [CMYUK’s Sales manager] who had been introduced to us by Paul Warwick [CMYUK Key Account Manager – Consumables], had visited us several times and really took the time to get to know us and understand our business. When we decided to go for the Colorado, we didn’t even bother to go for a demonstration, we trust CMYUK, they look after us very well and we got a very good deal. They were also able to install the printer very quickly,” says Justas.
The Canon Colorado M5W and the M series
The M5W is the top spec printer within Canon’s new M Series that runs at up to 159 sq. m per hr and includes white ink. Launched last March, it is the fourth generation of Canon’s UVgel technology. With a modular, configurable, and in-field upgrade path, it allows customers to add optional features to their base model as and when required. These include temporary speed upgrades for the M3 models that have a usual speed of 111 sq.cm per hr, large 1L or small 0.7L ink bottles, FLXfinish+ for either gloss or matt effects at the touch of a button, or the combination of both activated in a single pass, plus double-sided printing, and a magnetic media kit.
Canon’s white ink option can be applied further down the line in the field by an engineer and doesn’t require any dedicated pre-treatment or set-up. This is due to the unique chemistry of UVgel inks that resist sedimentation and clotting, which is supported by Canon’s printer circulation system.
Colorado difference
Says Justas, “The Canon Colorado M5W has allowed us to move forward. At the moment we are considering a second M5W printer which will significantly upgrade our capacity. We really love this printer and are very impressed with its performance and the way it works. It fits with our ethos of excellence. We never say no, it doesn’t matter how tired we are, we always want to complete everything on time no matter what. I want to feel at the end of each day we’ve achieved the best in everything that we’ve done, that way, customers will always come back to us.”
