Re: Has anyone had any experience with the Xante ILUMINA
I would do my homework on this machine before you get it. I have had one for about 1 1/2 years. I have spent over 80 hrs with tech support. They do not like sending out techs. It may be where I am at though. I have shipped my machine to Louisiana that took about 3 weeks with no replacement. WHEN it works it does a nice job. You have to watch the registration on all stocks if you use the bypass it can move 1/4 by just putting the paper in it.
The one thing is if you print a job when your consumables are at 100 to 90 percent, don't expect to get the same color out put when your consumables are at 70 or 60 percent the colors change. Also ask Xante for there Rating caculator. You can go off there cost per sheet sell sheet . But it does not take in consideration the weight of the paper. The heavier the paper you use the less life you will get. Not on what theConfiguration page says that you print out of the machine. Also ask what kind of warrienty you get with your comsuables. You could REALLY be in for a disapointment. Good Luck
Re: Has anyone had any experience with the Xante ILUMINA
I bought the first version of this which was badged as the Xante CL30 HSE with the HSE bit meaning "heavy stock enabled". Yes it would print on 330gsm card stock but the register was worse than anything I've ever seen. This was a rebadged OKI machine with a new heavier fuser and even OKI engineers I spoke too said that it was operating way past its spec. It was so bad that reversed text say white on a Reflex Blue background was so fuzzy it was unreadable. I was told by Xante that this was within spec!
I'll never ever ever buy another Xante product. They are just rebadging machines from other manufacturers, throwing in their own circuit boards and running them way beyond their recommended specs. The running costs are shocking too.
After all if this printer was designed to print on such heavy stocks, wouldn't OKI have done that to these machines in the first place?
I bought the Konica Minolta which is excellent and the prints look the closest to offset that I've seen without that glossy laser toner finish.
I've had an Ilumina now for almost 3 years. I'm very pleased with the results. This is the first digital press in my offset shop. I got it because of the problems I was getting outsourcing small four color jobs. I use it for bus cards, postcards, envelopes, etc and it fills that niche in my business very well. I don't use it for copies because of the cost of supplies. When I first got it, I went thru a learning curve, and the their tech department helped me out in that area. Yes, you do have to control your environement, and I tried to run job lot card stock through it and that didn't work. But these are things that you will encounter with all digital presses. I also had to replace my multi purpose tray. It started to wear out after I had run about 300,000 sheets through it. The tech department sent me a new one, and I installed it myself. They did walk me through it on the phone and it took about an hour. It was not that hard, I just wanted to be careful. Other than that, it keeps running and producing. I really like the fact that I can turn around four color jobs very quickly, and a big reason I got it was the difference in price between the Ilumina and all the others. I personnaly believe that the Cannons, Konica/Minolta's etc. figure in the maintenance costs into the price of their units. Your paying, you just don't know it.
JaimeZ,
I think you will be happy with your choice on the Ilumina. I'm sitting here reading several answers to your questions and some are filled with quite a bit of mis information. So, I will tell you what you purchased and why it is VERY different from the OKI Branded product. As a matter of fact probably the only thing that the printer has in common to the 9000 series OKI branded product is the outside cover is the same as well as core components (LED heads, motors, etc..). First, in order to accommodate 502GSM media, modification in both the transport as well as fusing section had to be accomplished. The standard branded product is only capable of 307 GSM. So as one user commented, doing invitation, envelopes and thick stuff is a real winner for the machine. Unfortunately, just changing the transport does not give good quality print on substrates. Due to the fact that the substrates vary in thickness Xante has engineered different algorithms that allow for enhanced electric bias. Adjusted bias is needed in order to make the printer die-electric process work on thick media. What this means in laymen terms is that the charge difference increased to enable pulling charge off the drum through the paper to be fused. With out this, you might be able to run thick stock, but you would not be happy with the image you received. Lastly, all brands Xerox, Oce, HP, Minolta that are selling their products into the corporate consumer space are concerned with CPC- "Cost Per Copy". The industry has set this number at 5%. You I know that this number is ridiculous in the shops that sell their color out put. So heres the problem. The way you control CPC is be using less toner. Great if you are printing "to-do" list, not so good if your printing invitations, brochures, pictures, etc... Good graphic quality requires more toner not less. I will agree that OKI's branded quality looks better then most but not as good as printer that is designed specifically to make prints that are sellable. Xante engineering has changed most of the firmware to enhance all of the different components (speed, fuser,temps,screen angles, densities, etc..) that allow a toner based printer to output best graphics quality. The problem is it will use more toner compared to a printer that is not designed to print sellable color. and However, if your not in the business in selling the output, the Ilumina is probably not the right product for you. You should probably stick with a branded product.
One last comment on the consumable's. Xante takes the OKI consumables and retests the Drums to 100% acceptance. That may be excessive but it is what they do. That's one reason for the cost difference.
I hope that clarifies some of the differences in the Xante product vs traditional branded printers. On the other note... The Indigo works great too, but I don't have +300K.
But I can't still run 502 GSM...
Okidata printers can be purchased as a Okidata, Xerox Phaser 7400, Xitron Prism, Xante Ilumina, Xante 3D, and soon to be MGI 3D printer at Graph Expo in the USA. The Degrava 8500 label press and soon to be released 9500 also use an Oki Data engine.
At times Xante customer service can be difficult to work with and for that reason we have considered that our next Okidata printer should maybe be a Xerox because we know we can get the service and support.
I'd agree that sometimes our Xante acts up for no reason and then will oddly enough fix itself and work great. It's definitely not a $25,000+ digital press but for the right applications can be a good fit. Just remember the price you pay and don't expect it to be something it's not.
i'm thinking of purchasing an xante to print postcards. i have been sending out orders a few orders a month that total about 5000 to 7000 cards. some of the orders are for as little of 500. do you think this printer is suitable for this purpose?
The Xante won't be able to duplex thicker stocks so it would probably be two passes to get the job done so your 500 minimum is going to become 1000. The front to back registration and consistency may be an issue for you as well. I'd suggest testing it for your application with you paper you may experience some slowdown with thicker stocks which may be a deciding factor for you on how efficient the printer is. For the right applications this printer work for others there are other solutions that preform better.
If you are speaking of 500 post cards, presuming you are doing 4 per sheet, this is only 125 sheets. Time is a non issue here when you compare the Illumina to a the press setup time...
Registration should also not an issue. These are post cards. They should have bleed for cutting, and with the postal requirements of .25" margin you are not going to have anything going to the edge anyway.
The speed of the Illumina is the same for the thicker stock, and feeding 125 sheets through the manual feed tray, flipping them and sending them back through for the back side is simple enough.
You can also look at the Xitron Prism. It is the same print engine, but comes with the GPS Workflow (with a Harlequin RIP) that will allow you to view the job on screen and maintain the job in the Workflow for future runs if necessary. Depending on what other output device you have, this may be a great opportunity to update your current RIP to a Workflow that will drive both devices and be current with today's applications.
It seems some people just have a beef with Xante. Not that Xante does not deserve it; many years ago they did have a bad reputation for customer service. However, today their support is very good; it is phone support and definitely helps if one is technically capable to follow Xante's tech support people.
We've had the the Ilumina for a year and it has a niche. We run a lot of thick stock and envelopes through it and I have found that more than half of the sheets have been fed through the multipurpose tray.
One wish I would like for the Ilumina would be to have an exterior RIP available like the Fiery or Scitex.
In summary, the Ilumina has been a great purchase for us and our aim is to eventually get into one of the more robust digital machines like an iGen 4 or a Canon 7000. But keep in mind that the Xerox or Canon machines will not be able to print more than 300-350 gsm and definitely not envelopes; so an all digital shop would need to have machine like the Ilumina to compliment there other digital presses.
Re: Has anyone had any experience with the Xante ILUMINA
Update on the Ilumina
Linear Mode
