Toner based envelope smearing concerns

[Stickman42]

We've had our Xerox Versant 80's for almost a year now. They're mostly used for running book covers, but we do a small amount of envelope printing also. We've run about 25 small jobs in the past 10 months. Only one client complained that what we printed on the #10's smeared when they ran the envelopes through their own laser printer for addressing. Anyone else have similar concerns? I'm about to price 5M 4 color envelopes, and don't want to set us up for an issue down the road.

 

[arossetti]

Toner is just melted plastic. That plastic has a melting point and the toner used the the versant has a low melting point so the fuser can run cooler than most office printers; less issues/more environmentally friendly. If your customer takes your envelope and puts it into their own printer with a fuser and that fuser temperature is equal or greater than your fuser temperature....well then the toner remelts and smears.

Lot more to it but that is the basics.

Most people avoid selling letterhead/envelopes produced on a laser printer (except high temp fusing devices like an Oki).

 

[MailGuru]

We have run thousands of envelopes on our Versant 2100 for a variety of customers. Some are even Fortune 500 companies. We've had no one complain about the toner smearing. But, I have to wonder why you are printing envelopes for someone else to address? The beauty of being able to produce short-run envelopes on a digital press is to be able to address them at the same time you are printing them. It doesn't cost you anything extra, you're already paying for the click. Approach your customer about printing the envelopes and addressing them at the same time as a value-added service "on demand". You can charge a little extra for the service, while not expending any more than you are now (more profit)

 

[Stickman42]

We have run thousands of envelopes on our Versant 2100 for a variety of customers. Some are even Fortune 500 companies. We've had no one complain about the toner smearing. But, I have to wonder why you are printing envelopes for someone else to address? The beauty of being able to produce short-run envelopes on a digital press is to be able to address them at the same time you are printing them. It doesn't cost you anything extra, you're already paying for the click. Approach your customer about printing the envelopes and addressing them at the same time as a value-added service "on demand". You can charge a little extra for the service, while not expending any more than you are now (more profit)

That's good to know. We are not a mailing house, so most of our envelope clients are buying a box or two to keep in their supplies cabinet for addressing as needed. We used to run offset, but went all digital about 5 years ago. Until we got the Versants, we produced envelopes on our 4C Riso (not great quality) or we outsourced to a local offset shop. It's great to be able to print quality envelopes in house again, but this smearing issue keeps me on edge.

 

[Stickman42]

(except high temp fusing devices like an Oki).

I've got an OKI C831 that sees limited use as an office/proof printer. Does this model fall into that group? I'm thinking not.

 

[arossetti]

I'm not sure, I'm talking about the Oki 900 series or a Xante like device.

 

[damfino]

Always ask you customer what printer will be used for imprinting. 'Brother' brand laser printers are known for this issue - some models have extremely high-temperature fusers.

Besides the high temperature fusers utilized in higher-end Oki's, these printers also use 'oil-less' toner which is less subject to the phenomenon. On the down side, for the best toner adhesion the Media Weight setting in the Oki drivershould be set to "Heavy" (increasing the heat with a longer dwell time), but this introduces a more pronounced curl in the sheet.

 

[damfino]

One more thing...

High density designs (color builds which rely on heavily layered CMYK percentages) are more prone to the issue.

 

[Stickman42]

Thank you all. I've decided to quote this to my client with a trade printer running them on his OKI.