Best digital press today?

[peels]

Plan on spending an extra $1200 PER month on your power bill IF you install an IGEN.

They LOVE power. Love it.

Uses TWO 220 lines and 80AMP at max. Plus A/C "chiller" unit runs full time.

$$$

OK, I would agree with that, but I feel like the Nexpress ate just as much if not more. ANNND the 150 dollar water filters for the humidifier I had to change almost weekly in the winter months.

interesting, I actually hadn't really thought of added power in the cost comparison...Just figured all printers eat tons of power.

but the biiig cost: image cylinders. NExpress had a taste for those. and at $1250 a pop x 5 units... , it was no light lunch....Igen has a single photoreceptor belt. Cant do quite the nice quality (photos in my opinion)....but cost, reliability, and volume it kills nexy.

 

[iamgemini]

This really is like asking which is the best car, and depends on a few things:

• Applications
• Print quality requirements
• Finishing
• Print volume
• Budget
• Service and support
• Workflow needs and expectations
• Range of substrates by size and type
• Controller capabilities and functionality

That said, we use the NexGendigo CL8050 and really like it, but each opinion will be different.

 

[Lammy]

Ran a NexPress SE2500 for two years. When everything is new, or pretty close to new it prints great. Once you get enough impressions on the image cylinders you cannot hold a flat solid color. What designer today doesn't put some sort of solid on their pieces? It'll do nice photo work until the parts won't make an image anymore though.

Also the click charge is out there, $0.25 per side for 8.5x11ish. Their billing also never makes any sense or matches any of the counts on the machine.

 

[C8000]

KM bizhub PRESS C8000...>Take a look at it Graph Expo this week...

while you are there check out the samples off of the new KM-1. Komori Paper Feed and KM Inkjet heads...Fantastic product...Check it out.

 

[arossetti]

C8000 is very slow for a production machine, wish it would run cover weight faster. Also if we are talking money no option it would be hard to compete with the real production machines, Nexpress, Indigo, iGen. Smaller production equipment like the c8000, x1000, c7010, etc can beat those pieces on 1 or 2 specifications but as a total package they are far behind still.

They are getting closer and for budget reasons they might be a better option for some but if we are asking what the best machine is the c8000 wouldn't be on my top 5.

 

[Digital Insight]

Agreed. The Konica C8000 is a piece of junk.

Can't even turn 350 GSM paper. And KM calls it a "production" machine?

Please.....

Get a Xerox 800 / 1000 ColorPress. Now THAT is a real machine.

Rob

 

[Toner4Brains]

You really have to look at it as 2 markets. You can't say "if money were no object" and then compare an HP 10000 to a C8000 running full tilt next to each other. The C8000 and Xerox 800 address a very important piece of the market that used to have to overcome a $16k lease payment every month before making any money if they wanted to run heavy board and have consistent color. In that respect and considering ROI at their respective volumes, I think the C8000 and Xerox 800 sit in the top 5 as the "since money is an object" presses where the HP 10000 is (quite obviously I believe) the "if money were no object" press. We'll see if the KM-1 shakes things up when it hits market.

However, the nice gentlemen that invented the G7 methodology DID say "Konica Minolta makes the best digital printers on Earth" - Konica Minolta Chromix - YouTube

C8000 is very slow for a production machine, wish it would run cover weight faster. Also if we are talking money no option it would be hard to compete with the real production machines, Nexpress, Indigo, iGen. Smaller production equipment like the c8000, x1000, c7010, etc can beat those pieces on 1 or 2 specifications but as a total package they are far behind still.

They are getting closer and for budget reasons they might be a better option for some but if we are asking what the best machine is the c8000 wouldn't be on my top 5.

 

[arossetti]

You really have to look at it as 2 markets. You can't say "if money were no object" and then compare an HP 10000 to a C8000 running full tilt next to each other. The C8000 and Xerox 800 address a very important piece of the market that used to have to overcome a $16k lease payment every month before making any money if they wanted to run heavy board and have consistent color. In that respect and considering ROI at their respective volumes, I think the C8000 and Xerox 800 sit in the top 5 as the "since money is an object" presses where the HP 10000 is (quite obviously I believe) the "if money were no object" press. We'll see if the KM-1 shakes things up when it hits market.

However, the nice gentlemen that invented the G7 methodology DID say "Konica Minolta makes the best digital printers on Earth" - Konica Minolta Chromix - YouTube

This is the original question: Best digital press today?
Is it Xerox iGen or is there something better?

So to answer that with a C8000 doesn't seem like a good answer. If we want to look at the best digital printer in the sub $500k range then yes the c8000 would be on my top 5 list.

 

[soontobeexkonicauser]

Always love when consultants start making real world comments from their labs. G7 is the greatest thing on earth for print, if it's followed consistently. Same goes for the C8000 print. One off, it's a good as it gets. In real production, it can be a nightmare.

On the question of energy consumption cost for an igen4, or any unit for that matter, will vary by what it does to the peak demand of the facility. If it kicks you over into another bracket, or starts costing you a demand charge, then adding it or any unit can get costly. This is an overlooked area when planning for digital purchases so many times. A positive is if you are lower end user, some utilities discount heavily when you reach a certain consumption level, so may actually actually see your utilities change very little. C8000 and 1200 from Konica are "green" devices that attempt to manage consumption. This saves you money. It also means you have lower throughput because the unit is constantly going through warm-up subroutines on the fuser as well as high power items such as perfect binders. And as noted above, the lab boys don't get out often so you really find some of this "management" ability in the way of real world production. We had to reprogram two of our machines to defeat the perfect binder heater shutdowns.

 

[Presselectronucs]

Plan on spending an extra $1200 PER month on your power bill IF you install an IGEN.

They LOVE power. Love it.

Uses TWO 220 lines and 80AMP at max. Plus A/C "chiller" unit runs full time.

$$$

This is a huge problem for both digital and offset printers. I love hearing printers tell their customers how "Green" they are by using recycled inks and paper. Just make sure they do not ask about your electric bill. Your carbon footprint is HUGE!!!

 

[Green Printer]

Ricoh c901 run away. I wouldn't buy this model. In fact if they gave it to me for free I wound not want it.

 

[soontobeexkonicauser]

Ouch, Green! That bad? I despise my C8000, or more precisely the lack of service and their ability to get the machine right, but I wouldn't go that far!

 

[Trevor_s]

Interesting comment regarding the c901. I recently completed demos of the KM C7000, KM C8000 and Ricoh c901 in late September. In October we had our brand new KM C7000 installed. Happy so far. But during my demos I was impressed with the 901. I walked into a production site where this particular 901 was and the guy threw my paper in and started printing without a hitch. I brought the same stocks and test files to each demo. The 901 blew me away with registration and productivity - speed basically. It absolutely nailed the front to back registration with no adjustment on every stock we through at it. It was able to duplex 350 gsm at full rated speed but there was some fine scratching I noticed. My main issue with it was color which I thought was grainy when compared to the Konica Minolta machines, and price. Ultimately price and quality was the driving factor for us and the Konica Minolta was the clear choice for us in these two areas.

 

[soontobeexkonicauser]

Interesting comment regarding the c901. I recently completed demos of the KM C7000, KM C8000 and Ricoh c901 in late September. In October we had our brand new KM C7000 installed. Happy so far. But during my demos I was impressed with the 901. I walked into a production site where this particular 901 was and the guy threw my paper in and started printing without a hitch. I brought the same stocks and test files to each demo. The 901 blew me away with registration and productivity - speed basically. It absolutely nailed the front to back registration with no adjustment on every stock we through at it. It was able to duplex 350 gsm at full rated speed but there was some fine scratching I noticed. My main issue with it was color which I thought was grainy when compared to the Konica Minolta machines, and price. Ultimately price and quality was the driving factor for us and the Konica Minolta was the clear choice for us in these two areas.

Interested to see how your post start-up goes on the C7000. The C7000, I feel, is the best color production unit on the market in the under 500,000 a month category. As few clicks as I get off my C8000, I would consider it a better platform, especially if you have two C7000's, than the C8000. If only they had let Creo write a decent front end for high end production for multiple units instead of going stand alone RIP with EFI (puke!) they could have completely skipped the C8000 development and saved everyone a lot of heartache. Do you feel the C7000 is inferior to the C8000 in print quality? We never really did a side by side comparison of the two of them. Of course, to overcome some problems, we have to run in 600 dpi mode which probably negates any advantage the C8000 has.

I've never seen the C8000 scratch a print, at least not yet, but we have had marking issues on inline stitched books that are happening somewhere that the tech can't correct. The in-line stitcher is one of the, if not the, weakest add-ons you can buy. It pretty much destroys your output speed. Near line finishing is still the way to go on these lower end production units.

 

[Trevor_s]

soontobe.....

When I did the Konica Minolta demo I went to KMs demo center in Dallas. They had a C8000 with all the bells and whistles and a C7000 sitting side by side. I ran the same tests on each machine. Both had a fiery for a front end. We went with the Creo as we were coming off of a Xerox 700 running a creo. My hope was to step up to a mid production machine like the 8000 or ricoh 901 vs a light production machine. The benefits of the C8000 were not enough to justify the cost. I would have opted for the Ricoh 901 over the C8000. Again, the quality of the 8000 & 7000 was better than the 901 but speaking pure production the 901 blew it away, wasn't even close. The quality of the C8000 vs C7000 was comparable. Slightly better on the C8000 but again, not enough to justify the cost. I was very impressed with the C7000 when I did the side by side demo. In fact I came away trying to figure out how Konica Minolta can justify the price difference between the two machines. A slight gain in speed and the option to print/duplex 350 gsm, which, by the way, I have done on the 7000. I have some hard numbers of each demo, type of paper, number of copies ran etc on each machine, time tests, quality tests. I'll dig those up and post as and FYI for anyone interested. The C7000 configuration we got has the inline stitcher with face trim, the inline folder option, 2 high cap trays, interposer trays, 3 hole punch and stapler finisher. At the price I got that for I could have added a second C7000 without all of the finishing options and been real close to the cost of a single C8000. I do agree with you on the speed of these machines in general. Duplexing cover weight on the c7000 the machine slows down to a crawl. Our numbers aren't at a point where it is affecting production but it will get there I'm sure. I'm at about 70,000 clicks after 1 month which isn't bad. About 1/4 of that is black and white with the rest of it color 12x18. We are a commercial printer and I have a lot of options when it comes to where I run color work in our shop. I'm taking a lot of work that was previously ran on our still operational DI and moving it to the C7000. My goals is be at 100,000+ a month on the 7000 but I would prefer that to be mostly new business, obviously, vs moving in-plant work from other presses.

 

[arossetti]

Trevor - I love my 700 and can go months without service on it. I'm interested to hear how you would compare the 700 to the 7000. To be fair we run a lot of the more color critical and cover weight printing on our 800 so it might not be as battle tested as some using it as a primary production machine.

 

[Trevor_s]

We inherited our 700 from one of our sisters companies that was shut down. It was rode hard and put away wet. Had about 3 million clicks on it. We had constant skewing and registration issues. Overall the reliability was good, not a lot of service calls. The color was good. I was satisfied with the color. There was streaking and some other issues but the lease was up and it was time to move on. I looked at a Xerox 770 but never got far enough to do a demo as I was shot down on the price by management.

 

[[email protected]]

Many times the price differences are a form of price discrimination. The hardware CAN be identical but cost significantly more just because it's faster and therefore can output more.

This isn't always true. Sometimes there are genuine modifications other than speed; but for the most part, speed and price are the only real differences. All manufacturers do this, not just on production machines but on "office volume" machines as well.

Some machines are more clear on the price discrimination. For instance the Oce Varioprint monochrome devices. They're all the same, but for a fee you can temporarily have an Oce' tech put a code into the machine and have it function just like the next model up. Therefore, it is the software and gimps or limits the machine.

 

[arossetti]

Some machines are more clear on the price discrimination. For instance the Oce Varioprint monochrome devices. They're all the same, but for a fee you can temporarily have an Oce' tech put a code into the machine and have it function just like the next model up. Therefore, it is the software and gimps or limits the machine.

This would be the same with the Nuvera series and the iGen 90 to 110, both can be upgraded via software for a predetermined amount of time or for ever.

 

[Sunnydol]

May want to look into the Ricoh C901'S before committing to paying hundreds of thousands of $$$$ ..