Indigo the way to go?

[kevneto]

We are currently looking at an Indigo 7000 as we need a high production digital press.

Right now we have 2 Canon 7000vp's and are pushing them to the max. While they are decent machines, their downtime is pretty high and we have no room to grow with them.
So just adding another 2 7000's is really not feasiable because because of footprint, power requirements, and we'd probably max those out in 6-8 months. We need a beast with a duty cycle of 1-2 million a month.

My concern's with the Indigo really boil down to HP themselves. Reading on some Indigo user forums, the users love the machine and quality (HP 5000), but take issue with HP support and consumables. I am experiencing some of these issues with Xerox now with my Doc 250's, which makes me hesitant on the IGEN4. My canon support has been good and the tech's do the best job they can to take care of these glorifed laser printers.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[lfelton]

We are currently looking at an Indigo 7000 as we need a high production digital press.

Right now we have 2 Canon 7000vp's and are pushing them to the max. While they are decent machines, their downtime is pretty high and we have no room to grow with them.
So just adding another 2 7000's is really not feasiable because because of footprint, power requirements, and we'd probably max those out in 6-8 months. We need a beast with a duty cycle of 1-2 million a month.

My concern's with the Indigo really boil down to HP themselves. Reading on some Indigo user forums, the users love the machine and quality (HP 5000), but take issue with HP support and consumables. I am experiencing some of these issues with Xerox now with my Doc 250's, which makes me hesitant on the IGEN4. My canon support has been good and the tech's do the best job they can to take care of these glorifed laser printers.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I can't help you directly with that question, but if you're not already aware of indigousers.net you might want to post there. I think that's a forum completely independent of HP.

Can you share where, from your experience, the 7000VP realistically tops out at (monthly volume)? Also, if your work requires a high level of colour consistency (as ours does), how easy is it to keep consistency when doing large volumes? Sorry to answer your question with more questions!

[MJNC]

Hey PrintPlanet! Happy Friday.
We run an Indigo S2000 at my shop, and 2 offset presses. Here is my perspective from the prepress end...
I really agree with the statement that you need a real press person to run these correctly. Someone who’s had the HP training - if you buy an Indigo, make HP include the cost of the press class for at least 1 person in the deal. It costs about $2,500.00 per person otherwise, plus airfare and hotel - unless you’re already in the Boston area (for US). This class is absolutely essential to the correct running and sustainability of the Indigo press though, so it is not the thing to skimp on.
I have seen output from several digital presses and I believe the quality on the HP is, so far, unmatched.
I think we had a 3 year service contract with HP, and until it was over we CMYKed our hearts out. After that, however, for every separation that goes onto any sheet, HP charges a “Click-Charge”; so remember to only send the channels that are being used when you start sending jobs.
Another thing is that if you want to print a spot color job as spot (not process), HP will formulate colors to PMS spec, but it is costly. Process imitations of pms colors are outstanding on the Indigo; make sure to exhaust all of your screening options before complaining about color matching abilities.
We print strictly on plastic here; and the Indigo does that beautifully; but we must do varnishes and coatings on a separate machine.
For variable data jobs, it comes with is own software called Yours Truly Designer - which is a huge pain in the a#@ to learn; and which only allows you to hard-proof by generating click charges. You may be able to swing the HP class for YTD (another $2000.00) for your prepress person into the deal as well. I highly recommend it if you intend to use this application. Anyone who has tried will tell you, the available documentation for YTD SUCKS!
Our Indigo handles whatever we throw at it; I have never experienced a postscript error!
So best of luck in your quest for information! It is nice to hear that someone is actually generating enough money to make such a purchase cost-effective. That is good news for all of us. Have a great weekend!!
Peace to the PrintPlanet!
_mjnc

[edwinb]

[quote=designleicester;116141] Predominantly the jobs are no bigger than A3/B3 so we thought we might look at options for buying our own press in the future. [quote]

if you do a spread sheet of your monthly volume/size/quality you will have a matrix that will help select the machine that can best fit. f the volume can be done by cheaper-lower quality- xerox/canon/oce machines then the substantial press investment for an indigo/similar is probably not justified.
Edwin

[kevneto]

Thank for your replies. there's some good stuff there.

Ifelton, concerning the 7000's. They are decent machines and fairly easy to use. They are rated at 75k-300K a4 sheets a month. We run mostly 13 x 19 which comes out to monthly duty cycle of 30k-100k. In addition, if you are running card stocks, that will decrease the duty cycle and require more service calls, especially on fuser rollers.

Between our 2 7000's, if we run 160-180k, they seem to run fairly well. Once we start getting to 200k, they service calls mount and you'll be seeing service at least 3-4 times a week. These machines are basically enhanced color lasers. I would not classify them as a "digital press"

the paper handling is very good up to 300gsm. Registration is good front to back. The color consistency is so-so, but we have ours in a large wherehouse, with some enviromental enhancements. I would imagine if you had them in a room with tighter enviromental controls, your color output would be more stable. But the color will drift, especially on lighter tints.

It's an OK machine if you are jumping into the digital market and plan on doing the majority of your runs on lighter stock. it could be a good fit. If you plan to use it as a heavy production machine, you'll find it a bit tempermental. If you get one, I hope you have a good relationship with your service provider and you may think about providing them a desk at your facility as you will be seeing them quite often. ;-)

We actually call one of the machines "the Princess" and have a tiara mounted of above the touch screen as the machine can be quite "moody". When we had Canon engineers out here to fix a problem on said machine, they were not amused with the tiara on their flagship product. I told them when they solved their problems I would take it down.

And to this day, the tiara still stands.

Hope that answers some your questions.

[meddington]

We actually call one of the machines "the Princess" and have a tiara mounted of above the touch screen as the machine can be quite "moody".

That is both sad and hilarious!

[lfelton]

Thank for your replies. there's some good stuff there.

Ifelton, concerning the 7000's. They are decent machines and fairly easy to use. They are rated at 75k-300K a4 sheets a month. We run mostly 13 x 19 which comes out to monthly duty cycle of 30k-100k. In addition, if you are running card stocks, that will decrease the duty cycle and require more service calls, especially on fuser rollers.

Between our 2 7000's, if we run 160-180k, they seem to run fairly well. Once we start getting to 200k, they service calls mount and you'll be seeing service at least 3-4 times a week. These machines are basically enhanced color lasers. I would not classify them as a "digital press"

the paper handling is very good up to 300gsm. Registration is good front to back. The color consistency is so-so, but we have ours in a large wherehouse, with some enviromental enhancements. I would imagine if you had them in a room with tighter enviromental controls, your color output would be more stable. But the color will drift, especially on lighter tints.

It's an OK machine if you are jumping into the digital market and plan on doing the majority of your runs on lighter stock. it could be a good fit. If you plan to use it as a heavy production machine, you'll find it a bit tempermental. If you get one, I hope you have a good relationship with your service provider and you may think about providing them a desk at your facility as you will be seeing them quite often. ;-)

We actually call one of the machines "the Princess" and have a tiara mounted of above the touch screen as the machine can be quite "moody". When we had Canon engineers out here to fix a problem on said machine, they were not amused with the tiara on their flagship product. I told them when they solved their problems I would take it down.

And to this day, the tiara still stands.

Hope that answers some your questions.

Blimey, that's valuable information, sincere thanks.

As we run well over 100K SRA3 a month on just ONE of our 6501s, I guess the 7000VP isn't the upgrade we're looking for!

[cmhdigital]

We are currently looking at an Indigo 7000 as we need a high production digital press.

Right now we have 2 Canon 7000vp's and are pushing them to the max. While they are decent machines, their downtime is pretty high and we have no room to grow with them.
So just adding another 2 7000's is really not feasiable because because of footprint, power requirements, and we'd probably max those out in 6-8 months. We need a beast with a duty cycle of 1-2 million a month.

My concern's with the Indigo really boil down to HP themselves. Reading on some Indigo user forums, the users love the machine and quality (HP 5000), but take issue with HP support and consumables. I am experiencing some of these issues with Xerox now with my Doc 250's, which makes me hesitant on the IGEN4. My canon support has been good and the tech's do the best job they can to take care of these glorifed laser printers.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I'd not restrict myself to the Indigo when looking around. There are other options out there. If you don't like the maintenance and downtime on the C7000s, then you might not like the downtime on the Indigo. It can produce nice prints, but you really have to have a skilled operator -- and the amount of time chaning blankets and PIPs is significant. The other production devices out there are Xerox iGen and Kodak NexPress. The iGen is OK, but color consistency has always plagued it. The NexPress of the past had not been able to generate the flat fields the Indigo has, but they've added some new technologies to fix that. I'd seriously look at the NexPress. There is no press that has the same productivity, and the quality is finally where the Indigo is.

You should judge for yourself -- and send some samples to the 3 of them to decide for yourself. Have some conversations. Decide what is important to you, and make an informed choice.

This forum has many good opinions on it. There are many bad opinions too. In a former life, I had experience with software from various competing vendors, and users at the company I worked for doing the evaluation of the software were very biased. They were biased to whatever software they used first. (Think Macintosh versus PC.) I think the same is true for these digital presses -- you will get operators who may be biased toward the press they are currently using. Sorry if I offend you by making that statement. That is not my intent.

Also, if you get quotes from all three -- you have a much better chance of getting a better price!!

Good Luck with your decision.