Expert Opinion Needed on New Printer for Neophyte

[URestrepo]

Dear Print Planet Forum,

My name is William, and I am a representative for a nonprofit theatre here in Texas hoping to expand our print capabilities, like in marketing. In noticing our print costs skyrocketing using a 3rd party, the board and I are searching for a printer of our own.

In my search, though, I have found much information that I am not familiar with and hope you can provide your knowledge into helping us choose a certain brand and printer.

As of now, our major cost comes from the playbills, little booklets for productions. In continuing to explain my circumstances, as of now, we technically do our runs every other month for a production. This includes a playbill (color) with 6 sheets (24 pages). This can range 1,500 to 4,000 a production not including flyers and posters. As for flyers, this would be a minimum of either 500 or 1,000 per production. For posters perhaps I believe 12 by 18 would be a minimum of 100. These numbers will increase should we be successful more later on and expand our marketing capabilities. trifold brochures would be be nice to make automatically however, I can live in the meantime manually folding should it cost too much to get. These are simply bare minimums and do not include anything we might print during other periods.

We are hoping to expand out capabilities to include direct mail, catalogs, post cards, etc, however it is not necessary at this point in time. But it would be nice to have. I also do not believe we will ever need the capability of making bound glued books. If necessary I thin we can afford to have that outsourced or the booklet maker should suffice

I also found out that these printers do not print full bleed unless you trim them after the fact, forgive me on being ignorant on such a common fact. Any advice on this matter would be most useful, such as recommended workarounds to I do not think you will need it.

I have been searching already and have obviously looked into certain big known brands like xerox, konica minolta, and ricoh. We are looking to buy the printer and are willing to spend I think upwards of about 40,000 give or take 5,000. Why this price, it is the minimum we would spend if we outsourced it so why not just buy it.

On solely looks on paper and meeting with the people I have to interact for the maintenence agreement, I like a local xerox company. I was looking into the Phaser 7800 (good for now I think) and the Xerox 700i (can handle supposedly heavier stock compared to 550) .

I do not know much on canon.

I did not really like the the ricoh company down here as one I did 'not like their descision making for me and too the fact that they memntioned I had to control my color costs. On the info print on the brochure, it mentions also "infoPrint reserves the right to bill for excessive toner consumption." Something I do like the sound of

I looked into the Konica minolta, but one they want to lease it at the cost of the xerox 700i, Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C5501 and two the resolution is 600 by 600 but 8 bit. I also do not like the fact I was lied to by them when they said one of there samples was printed on one of the bizhub but was told by a good friend that that could not be possible on what was given. There is another one I can go to to see if they offer a better price and service.

I looking for at least a little bit of quality. If you please though, I would like then some advice and some general info on to know about costs to operate, click fees, consumables, service contracts, reliability, alternatives with the same functionality to the one that I am considering.

[Joe Duffy]

You are looking to bite off alot, but... a KM 5501 would be a good machine to cover everything you are asking about. Be sure to get it configured correctly to handle not only what youa re doing now but what you plan on adding. Don't go for the low end trimmer and stitrcher. But you forgot to include alot in your cost numbers you need to take into account:

Infastructure costs. - Any machine that will do what you want will require 230v electric connections, as well as 110.
Where do you plan to run this equipment? It will have to be in a climate controlled area
What about the cost of the materials you plan to print on? They are not free.
What are you going to do when the machine is down? - and it will be down at times.
Who do you have tha understands how to handle variable data files for the mailings you want to do?
Who do you have that knows and understands the postal regulations that you must follow?

You think outsourcing is expensive, just wait till you make monthly lease payments and click charge payments and add to that the time you will now spend watching the engine run to what you are paying. Printers do this for a living, you are trying to do it for a hobby. Have you bid your work out to several printers in the area - alot are looking for nice monthly customers and price the work accordingly - you can work around them and they will help you with the price.

Be careful, you just might get what you ask for!

[Happyprinter]

I agree with Joe. Unless you have experience in the industry your biting off a lot. I've seen many others in your circumstances, outsourcing their printing, not happy with the pricing, figure they can do it on their own less expensive and more economical. As I sit here, I cannot think of any of them that end up better off. There are many commercial printers out there that would do a great job at a reasonable price. But, it's all good. I buy a lot of equipment from auctions that originate from companies like yours that thought they could save a dime. Better have your eyes "WIDE OPEN" Good luck.

[URestrepo]

You are looking to bite off alot, but... a KM 5501 would be a good machine to cover everything you are asking about. Be sure to get it configured correctly to handle not only what youa re doing now but what you plan on adding. Don't go for the low end trimmer and stitrcher. But you forgot to include alot in your cost numbers you need to take into account:

Infastructure costs. - Any machine that will do what you want will require 230v electric connections, as well as 110.
Where do you plan to run this equipment? It will have to be in a climate controlled area
What about the cost of the materials you plan to print on? They are not free.
What are you going to do when the machine is down? - and it will be down at times.
Who do you have tha understands how to handle variable data files for the mailings you want to do?
Who do you have that knows and understands the postal regulations that you must follow?

You think outsourcing is expensive, just wait till you make monthly lease payments and click charge payments and add to that the time you will now spend watching the engine run to what you are paying. Printers do this for a living, you are trying to do it for a hobby. Have you bid your work out to several printers in the area - alot are looking for nice monthly customers and price the work accordingly - you can work around them and they will help you with the price.

Be careful, you just might get what you ask for!

How fascinating that you would call what I would print a "hobby". So sad I came here for help, hopefully some encouragement, and in return receive nothing but doubts and some overbearing comments.

But to your questions, I will answer. In the building we have, we have three 230v connections. Some are in different rooms mind you.

As for the climate controlled question, our rooms have their own climate panels.

As for the click charge, I am told all materials are included with the exception of paper and staples of which we were paying for earlier before this decision was made (of which we are still debating). I also wished to buy the printer, not lease it of which we can afford.

As for down times, I did work for a school that owned a production printer. I do remember quite well of the down times. We survived quite well during those periods waiting for the company to come down and see what was wrong.

We did have a dear friend who owned a print shop assist us but sadly he also happens to be dead, and with him also his business. To your ignorance I have visited over 10 shops, (3 national, 6 local, and quite of few online.)

I also did very basic variable print on envelopes, mind you it was not a lot. Unless, I am missing something or if one needs a masters in computer programing and software manipulation, it can be learned. Again nothing we need at the present time.

You do have me, Duffy, at mail regulations. You are right, I do not know what I need to know. It might be nice though where you might find such info. I guess, if you are not willing to help, I will just go to our local US mail distribution center and ask.

As for Happyprinter, it is not just the price that I do not like. I believe in the industry it is called print on demand. We had one production that by chance sold the second day 324 tickets of which we needed to print basically 350 more playbills. Because of its urgency, the print shop billed 1/3 more. We had the same problem another time and wished to not pay. We had to refund partial of the ticket price and some reviews later did not take too kindly. Why do we print near what we need instead of extras? We had a production that did not do as well as we had hoped and had there 1,852 extra playbills, a loss of over 5200 dollars. Even with history, not all shows are guaranteed successes.

I also happen to have an acquaintance of mine that bought a xerox 550 for his church. Seeing their success is why I was considering this.

Dear happy printer, unless I am missing something, we would save more than 33,000 every year including the cost of buying a xerox 700i, including maintenance agreement, click charges, and other costs. To you that may be worth still contracting a print company but with that money, we could spend hiring a contractor and build at least 3 well embellished sets.

Now, am I still missing something?

[Joe Duffy]

William,
your right, all printers should help you to pull work away from them so you can save money.... just like you would help me set up a competing theater in your backyard!

You seem to miss the point, what was spelled out to you was indeed helpful.... I have seen many instances of people going to demos, buying equipment, then being amazed at the cost to install it because of the things they have forgotten. And because you have a theromstat in a room does not in any way make it climate controlled for a digital machine. You think a printer should drop everything, print for you and not charge an additional amount - why? What makes you the person that understands his business and what he stopped doing to do your rush job? You complain of throwing away materials like that is also the printers fault that you overestimated the regions desire for your production... if I go to the grocery store and buy a bag of lettuce but half goes bad before I finish it, is it the stores fault?
Your correct, I assumed you did not do all of your homework because you failed to freely give that information upfront. You say that you got by when the machine was down, and when that happens to be at the exact time you are trying to print your shortage I am sure you have a backup plan in mind.

It is just as simple as hitting print... goood liuck.

[curveto]

<snip/>
In my search, though, I have found much information that I am not familiar with and hope you can provide your knowledge into helping us choose a certain brand and printer.
<snip/>
I also found out that these printers do not print full bleed unless you trim them after the fact, forgive me on being ignorant on such a common fact.
<snip/>

I have a Xerox 7760 (it happens to be a GX, but...) and find it's print quality to be exceptional (and my quality requirements are VERY exacting). I have some materials that look especially nice when run on (a nice stock like) Mohawk 50/10 gloss (which I think would be ideal for a zine or "thin" book-like composition. I bought mine in "like new" condition with very low mileage (i.e., 45k impressions) on EBay for $1200 (it came from a bankruptcy reseller). I've seen them go for as low as $900 with reasonable click counts (i.e., < 100k clicks). Marginal operating costs (just consumables no service) runs about $0.06-$0.08 per (Letter, single-sided) impression. Actually, now that I think of it that number (which is coming from the top of my head) may be for a full impression (duplex, Tabloid) ... I don't have my spreadsheet handy and haven't been thinking about things (in this regard) for a while now.

No digital printer is going to run ink or toner off the edge of the paper so full bleeds inherently require a trimming step. For that you may consider a reasonably priced Tabloid capable trimmer. I may be reaching here (since I haven't looked in a few months) but I recall seeing some Triumph single knife trimmers for a few thousand $.

Best of luck in your search...

[Dottiek]

If your machine doesn't do bleeds, have your designer design around it. Simple solution.
Edge trim from creep is something else. Get the edge trimmer on any bookletmaker attachment you find.
Folders on office-level machines are worthless. They only hold 50 or so and only certain configurations. For the same $ get a tabletop Horizon folder ( we have a P320) and fold all day in many configs. Let your designer get to know the folder.
For mail regs, if you don't do it constantly, ask the post office what it's current regs are. They change daily ( or is it just me?)
Ask BEFORE you start designing. It will save headaches. VDP can be done without fancy equipment, it just takes more mental equipment on your part.

[jrhmobile]

A clue.

It's good that you have 230V power, even if it's for reasons that you don't understand. Maybe this is where you should buy your first clue

The next one you'd better pick up quickly is why you need to consider environmental factors for your output devices. Nobody suggested you should run your $40,000 printer outside in the rain. Your condescending response doesn't exactly encourage people to help you, but it does clearly reflect your ignorance. To get consistent results, you need to carefully monitor temperature and humidity values where that output device is run and its paper and ink/toner materials are stored. At the very least, inconsistencies will result in unacceptable color variation. At worst, it will result in turning that $40,000 investment into an expensive piece of junk. And the gap between those two outcomes isn't very far at all.

I'm glad you went to school. Did you run that production printer? Did you at least find out why the people responsible for it were pulling their hair out when it wasn't running well? Yeah, based on your response, I didn't think so.

You're right though, you can learn how to run and maintain all this gear. But you're not going to get that experience from Book Learnin' O Wise One. You're going to discover it through the School of Hard Knocks. Ask those folks from the over 10 print shops you visited how they learned how to make things run right. One of the dirty secrets of this business is that we learn from our mistakes, and that whenever you introduce new equipment, you get the opportunity to make a brand new set of them.

You were on the right track when you asked professionals to help you sort these issues out. Many of us, even though you're asking us to undercut our business, are happy to help novices because we've been there ourselves and know how steep the learning curve can be. But you've screwed up by first being dismissive of the real-world experiences and suggestions that folks here have shared with you, then by being rude and insulting to those who've asked you to carefully consider what you're looking to do. I'd say about now, everybody who's read this thread, once they got over the rage of your arrogance and ignorance, has started chucking to themselves and decided to leave you to your own devices.

But don't worry. Those equipment salespeople you've been talking with will tell you it's easy to run all this stuff. And of course, a learned person like you obviously can make this equipment work fine -- no problem! But before you jump in ask yourself these two things:

Was one of your equipment salesman's first questions "How much can you afford to spend a month?"

When you got the proposal, did you end up spending every bit of that?

On-demand printing only works when everything works like it's supposed to once you "demand" it. And if the jobs were created efficiently on the front end to accommodate whatever resources you have -- equipment, materials and personnel -- to meet that production demand. I do hope that dear friend who handled your printing was granted Sainthood. Because if you exhibited just a fraction of the condescending, demeaning and willfully ignorant attitude that you've shared on this board, he most certainly deserves it.

Good luck dude. You're on your own.

There. I feel much better now ...

[Happyprinter]

UR. It would seem that you took great offense on the suggestions given you. No reason to. We were just stating fact on past experience that we have seen other individuals in your type of situation go thru. Just because a plan looks good on paper does not always mean it will turn out that way. There are a lot of hidden expenses in operating a shop, offset or digital. It's amazing the amount of things you find out after the sale that you did not count on that is going to up your costs. I understand, from what you posted your situation and need, but, I stand by my advice. You are located somewhere in Texas. I am going to assume in a large city? Surely there is someone that already has an established operation that will work a price and schedule that will work with your situation.
As for your last statement. "am I missing something?." Again, might look good on paper. I hope if you decide to go ahead you have great success. But after many, many purchases of equipment and running a printing company for a long time, I can guarantee you one thing. What you plan on and what you get, are ALWAY's 2 different things!

[brent]

Wow…Is this what we have degenerated to in the printing industry? You guys act like URestrepo is stealing business from you personally. Just like we have to expand and do "other" things besides putting ink on paper, so do other industries.

I know we as a Print shop now do some web pages, some digital stuff and some posters. I remember back in the day you could only get posters made at Sign shops…but nobody here is complaining or upset that they are taking away business from sign shop owners…same for web site design. And how many printshop owners even had digital devices back in the day there were all at the copy shops.

I think some people just need to get off their high horses a bit and relax. Times change. Roll with it or die.

Crazy…just crazy. I almost feel bad that I am in printing right now!