Bringing my print in house with a KM C3070L

[Sunny_icandy]

Hi all, firstly thank you for allowing me to join this amazing forum, I’ve been following it for sometime now and finally decided to join. I’m seeking some advice please on the Konica Minolta C3070L. A little background about me. I am a graphic designer working from home and currently outsourcing my printing, but do have large format in house to do up to 30inch media. The Roland BN2-30A which is performing great!

I wanted to do my own printing for leaflets / posters / menus etc in house and have found a company offering me a 3070l on a 5 year lease deal. I don’t currently do a lot of printing, but really want to push this side and offer a print on demand type service, pushing turnaround to a few hours for basic leaflets.

I have had a xerox c60, Xerox 8055 and still currently a c7000 that I use, but wanted to know how the KM compares to these machines? The c7000 is hopeless at anything complex, the duplex is all over the place. I had to down size due to an upcoming house move, but deciding to convert my new house garage to a production area.

I was never really happy with the quality of the c60 and felt it was a little lacking. Any help or advice on the KM would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ynot_UK]

Welcome to the forum, Sandeep

Be mindful the C3070L was discontinued almost five years ago and replaced with the C4065. That said, there are a lot of similarities in parts and consumables between the C30xx and C40xx series. We've had the C4080 for almost five years (being the first UK installation in December 2020) and it's been a good machine. Make sure you're being offered a good click rate that is fully inclusive of parts, service and toner, also check any annual increases don't compound to make the click overpriced say from year 3/4. Also be aware of any minimum volume expectation in the contract, ideally this won't exist but if it does, it should be annualised rather than calculated monthly.

I see you already do large format inkjet, so you may already have some finishing equipment. For the leaflets, posters and menus you mention you'll certainly need a guillotine (stack cutter) and some means of creasing/scoring and folding. We consolidated our separate Duplo DF-1200 folder and Autocreaser Pro33 into a single machine, the Morgana Digifold ProXL a couple of years ago and haven't looked back. This machine is perfect for the small to medium volume digital printer. For menus, you'll probably get asked for lamination, so you'll want to add an SRA3 or B3 format roll laminator (e.g. Vivid Matrix 370/530) sooner or later, although you may be able to use an existing larger laminator, if you already have one for your large format work. In this market you'll definitely also get asked for booklets (which are more profitable than flyers but need to be done properly, i.e. with fore-edge trim and ideally, square back).

As an existing operator, presumably you already have accounts with either Premier Paper, Antalis, or both.

Sell your local service based on your design skills, turnaround and reliability, i.e. don't aim to provide the cheapest flyers because doing so, you'll lose money and become a busy fool. Let people who want the cheapest flyers carry on designing themselves in Powerpoint/Publisher/Canva and buying them from the usual suspects online.

 

[Sunny_icandy]

This is amazing advice thank you so much. I do have a SRA3 guillotine still, but no other finishing equipment as of yet. I’ll definitely look into the above options you’ve mentioned.

I totally understand that I am buying a machine that has been discontinued, but feel like it’s far less of an outlay or risk, to get me started off and push it properly.

The machine comes with the below:

DF-706 - scanner
LU-202m - paper feeder
Fs-531 - finisher

As for paper suppliers, I was buying SRA3 off an online company. I did approve the paper merchants directly, but they refused to deal with me as my order volume wouldn’t be big enough for them yet.

I terms of marketing for the business, I have already started doing some limited time offers, until I can grow the client base on the print side. I see no reason to offer my existing clients a cheap rate, as I do really want to focus on producing quality.

This is one of the machine reasons I want to get a production level machine.

 

[Sunny_icandy]

Just to add, I have negotiated a nil commitment contract and a click rate of 0.034 plus vat on colour, which includes, everything down to toner, to engineer cover.

Only down side is that I am not vat registered, but feel the clicks are a lot less when what I have paid on my xerox machines, so gives me a fighting chance.

 

[bcr]

IIRC the 3070L is the basic version of the 3070 which does not include a proper multi drawer paper feed and is limited in terms of finishing options. check also what RIP it has and what the limitations of that may be. if it's a bustled Fiery, they're often quite restricted.

it's also pretty old as I was looking at this machine as a possible option back in I think 2019.

it's an obsolete machine - so I'd be wary of getting into a lease on it. the value of it is going to be close to zero. I'd go as far as to say the only value it has is the service agreement with the company offering it to you.

if the lease amount is very very low, and the terms allow a getout clause for you in case of failure to deliver on the part of the provider, then it might be worth considering. the provider will certainly have a get out clause on their end, in case the machine cannot be economically serviced or parts obtained any longer, but they won't include one for you unless you negotiate it.

i don't think i'd bother with it unless it was very cheap and very easy to get out of if it goes wrong. i would recommend going for a light production printer with proper paper trays and more finishing options, and in doing so, check whether heavy duty/three phase power will be needed or if it can run off a regular outlet. something like a Ricoh C5300 might be a better bet.

 

[Sunny_icandy]

Really appreciate the feedback on this. It's a tough one really, as I feel the machine deal is perfect for dipping my toe in the water and trying to build that aspect of the business, with low overheads. While I totally understand a newer machine will have a longer service life, I may not doing the volume (currently) to justify it. I totally understand there are some differences this L model. I have seen the spec sheets for it compare to other models in the range. At this current time I dont need any inline finishing, as I would print SRA3 as much as possible and finish offline.The machine comes with the EFI fiery rip which isnt the standalone version. It's the one built into the back of the machine. Im not aware of any limitations as of yet that would cause me issues, as I have also imposed my jobs manually and used the rip for processing speed more then anything.

I will definitely review my contract before signing it. I just know even if I went for a newer 4065 the machine would be worth pennies at the end of the term, so this is going to be a depreciating asset anyhow, so surely the cheaper machine would be the best way to go, to get a business off the ground?

I have looked at the ricoh offering, while it does produce amazing quality, it comes at a price point I dont feel comfortable with. It has a separate service charge for just the rip of £60+ Vat a month on top of the lease payments. That doesnt sit well with me as I need to be careful how much we spend on what right now is going to be a tough market to break into.

the machine on offer also has low clicks, I believe around 66k in total. It will be fully re-commissioned before coming to us, it makes sense for them to do this to ensure the machine will last the duration. It wouldnt make sense for them to supply us a machine that wasn't able to do what we needed.

 

[Ynot_UK]

I will definitely review my contract before signing it. I just know even if I went for a newer 4065 the machine would be worth pennies at the end of the term, so this is going to be a depreciating asset anyhow, so surely the cheaper machine would be the best way to go, to get a business off the ground?

If you are making lease payments, that is a revenue (P&L) cost therefore you're not accounting for depreciation. Depreciation is a means of maintaining a realistic value of assets (capital investments) by charging a fraction of the initial cost to the P&L each year over the useful life of the asset. If you are leasing the machine, it's doesn't touch your balance sheet as it's not your asset (it's on the Finance Co's balance sheet, not yours) . Having said all that, I've never leased anything ever in my life, so do check your position and most tax efficient way forward with your accountant

the machine on offer also has low clicks, I believe around 66k in total. It will be fully re-commissioned before coming to us, it makes sense for them to do this to ensure the machine will last the duration. It wouldnt make sense for them to supply us a machine that wasn't able to do what we needed.

Taking @bcr 's point, as the machine is prior generation (and likely next year to become prior, prior generation) it is more advantageous for the company offering it to you to close the deal, than it is for you to jump at it, as you currently have a lot of choice. Sticking with KM as I know the machines, I'd certainly compare the lease payments on a new C4065 versus this refurbed C3070L. Unless it's at least 40% cheaper, you need to be bargaining harder as they'll struggle to place that machine which comes with the single paper deck which you'll bore quickly of. I recall you can attach a PF-707m to the C3070L (I'm sure I saw that config in a KM showroom, however can't check as I don't have the old configurator).

 

[Sunny_icandy]

Thank you again for the feedback, so doing some more research I did come across this article which compares the differences to the 3070 and the newer 4065, it made for an interesting read:

Konica C3070 vs Konica C4065: Production Copier Selection Guide - reoep

Konica C3070 and C4065 as production copiers, what is the difference between these two and how should different customers choose?

reoep.com

I’ve also gone back to the company’s supplying the machine to me to confirm a few things on it. So the machine is like new with only 10k click on it, which is incredible to hear. They are not going through a finance house, they are dealing with me directly. I have asked them about two scenarios, firstly what happens if the machine completely breaks down in the 5 year agreement. They had said they will need to supply a like for like replacement. Secondly, what if we need to upgrade, to which they have said it would be beneficial for them to do us the best possible deal at that time. As the machine isn’t going through a finance house, there would be easier route to upgrade without penalty.

I have also priced up a newer 4065, which works out to about £270 plus vat a month.

This machine will cost me £150 plus vat a month. I really like the low overhead option, as I am concerned that if I can’t build the work up enough to justify the newer machine, but maybe if I go with the entry level machine I do have a route to upgrade if I can get the work for it?

 

[Ynot_UK]

Just skimming through a few paragraphs of that article brings me to the conclusion it is mostly horseshit - written, possibly by AI, as an SEO page for Google et al
It's fundamentally wrong on many counts

• The C4065 is not an upgrade for the C3070
• "A monthly load of one million sheets", an arbitrary calculation based on printing non stop for 40 hours per week, excluding any downtime, calibration/BSA/replen time.
• "According to the feedback we received from consumers, the machine’s failure rate increased by 40% when printing up to about 1 million sheets" - what does that even mean?

I didn't read the rest

£150pcm for that C3070L actually seems reasonable in conjunction with the CPC you mentioned earlier, if the latter includes all service/maintenance/parts/toner. Especially as you're an unknown in so far as not having any established volumes. Make sure any eventualities and promises mentioned in emails or verbally are memorialised in the contract. Check there's not a separate monthly cost for the Fiery. Agree the fixed CPC for the term. Good luck.

 

[Sunny_icandy]

I’m so glad I’ve asked on here and honestly appreciate you guys taking the time out to help me out with this. Didn’t even think that article would be written via AI to be fair

I have definitely checked that all is included and also amended the contract to state that there won’t even be a standing charge if we don’t print anything.

The fiery doesn’t have a separate maintenance charge either. It’s all built in to the package. It seems like a safe way to start off in my opinion compared to a newer more expensive machine.

I’ve definitely tried to cover all bases. I would really like to know if the machine could handle 400gsm through it lol

 

[Sunny_icandy]

Just wanted to come back to update you all on this topic. So I print tested the machine yesterday in Lincoln and I was seriously impressed with the quality out of it. Compared to my Xerox experiences, the KM wins handles down. It was even better to learn that the machine has only done 7k clicks. It’s literally brand new.

I am pleased to say I will be going for it. The duplex was better than anything I’ve used in the past alone.

I do understand the limitations of the machine, it doesn’t have many finishing options, but am more then happy with the configuration it has on it and can adapt my design work to suit. Like all digital it did struggle with printing greys, but again, the results were one of the best I have seen from a laser.

Just wanted to thank you all again for the help