Advice on B&W Low Cost laser for Carbonless Paper Printing

[WeberPrinting]

I have a Xante EnPress. It really does a nice job, it's a bit slower on large carbonless paper runs, and make a mark where the feed roller touches the sheet.

I am a very small shop, looking for a Laser Printer suitable for Carbonless Paper.
All these jobs are one sided in black and white only 8.5 x 11.
Don't want to print any 11x17" with it and no color.
I have tested a couple HP Lasers like the 4240 and 5000 and the toner doesn't fuse firmly on the CF stock.
I am talking run lengths of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets is all.
I print on Nekoosa Universal Carbonless precollated stock.
Want something under $5,000 new.
Good registration, few if any marks on the carbonless stock, firm fusing of the toner.
Stop laughing - hoping someone has some advice.

Does anyone out there have any success with using a regular Laser type printer with carbonless stock
that can get a faster output than 2,000 sheets per hour which is about what I get on the Xante with a 4 Fuser setting.
If I set it to 3 or faster, it slurs some of the lines and solids.
I would appreciate input from anyone.

 

[azehnali]

isn't a production printer cheaper to run and faster like a Xerox D95

 

[SoggyWinter]

If you're in the US, you might reach out to X-Digital for a refurb Xerox BW machine. You could also get a duplicator for under $5000 if the carbonless sheets do not have variable data. Duplo and Riso and Ricoh make them and they are up for sale used on eBay and other auction sites periodically. Boggs Equipment and Print Finishing Systems are good sources for used machines. Good luck.

 

[Ynot_UK]

A few thoughts:

• As you've discovered, carbonless substrate gives different levels of success on different digital machines. Check the machine specs to ensure compatibility, else you're guaranteed to experience various problems, from bad fusing, poor registration, dog eared output to full on jams.
• If you get dog eared output on long edge feeding, try short edge feeding and the problem will often go away.
• If you're on a CPC contract, consider printing 2-up. The larger size may likely cost a little more than 2x the smaller, however your individual CPC will determine what's best for you. For B/W it may not make a lot of difference, for CMYK it will be worthwhile.
• You mention 10k runs. Unless variable data, is litho not a better solution all round for these larger jobs?
• Don't be put off by a refurbished production machine from a good vendor. Your $$$ will go much, much further. Make sure you're on an all inclusive CPC, so there's no nasty surprises and to help you budget. Also, an all inclusive CPC will buy you a much better refurb, as the vendor won't want to throw avoidable time and money at the machine a few months down the line.

 

[Stickman42]

make a mark where the feed roller touches the sheet.

Look for air/vacuum feed instead of friction feed

 

[dotgain]

Marking on digital printer can be the result of how the paper is loaded in the feeder, xerox typically feeds paper print side down so no marking… Ricoh and other printers feed print side up and as a result can get feed roll marks.
Offset would be better, run 2up 11x17 @ 10000/hr on a 1col. or 2col. Heidelberg QM or Printmaster is much more efficient (ahh the good old days), also if you are gluing sets across the 8.5'' then 2up gives you a flatter glue line, not wavy like when gluing across the grain of the paper. We used to run these presses day in and day out but now it's hard to find that work as everything is ultra short run or cheaper at a form printer running from web stock.

 

[jwheeler]

You need to look into a duplicator. They are fast, perfect for b/w line art on NCR, they use liquid ink instead of toner, so no heating of the paper, or worrying about the NCR coating effecting the machine. We have 2 of them in our shop and we print dozens of cases of NCR each month on them.We just upgraded from Duplo to Riso a month ago and they've been great (Duplo's were fine too, just got old). We specifically got 2 of the RISO SF9450 EIIU which is one of the faster models and handles large sheet sizes. For your sheet size and volume, you can get one of the lower cost units. Only thing to be aware of with duplicators is they do not handle screens very well at all. They print the image through a 'master' which is a very thin piece of film. Fine screens tend to plug.

 

[tngcas]

You need to look into a duplicator. They are fast, perfect for b/w line art on NCR, they use liquid ink instead of toner, so no heating of the paper, or worrying about the NCR coating effecting the machine. We have 2 of them in our shop and we print dozens of cases of NCR each month on them.We just upgraded from Duplo to Riso a month ago and they've been great (Duplo's were fine too, just got old). We specifically got 2 of the RISO SF9450 EIIU which is one of the faster models and handles large sheet sizes. For your sheet size and volume, you can get one of the lower cost units. Only thing to be aware of with duplicators is they do not handle screens very well at all. They print the image through a 'master' which is a very thin piece of film. Fine screens tend to plug.

What's the ballpark price range on the duplicators?

 

[jwheeler]

What's the ballpark price range on the duplicators?

Less than $5,000 (US Dollars)

 

[bill kahny]

I too have a riso, we have basically turned it into our office printer based on quality. Be sure to test it for your NCR jobs for all the reasons above.

 

[idahodian]

I have used a Riso in the past, registration was terrible, lines for filling out forms not even close. We used a Xerox 4127 for years for both carbonless and regular black and white printing and had lost of jams. Switch to a dedicated Xerox D95 in 2019, now have 1,499,308 clicks on it, I think we have had 15 service call since 8/4/2019, 3-4 months apart, they are mostly for dust build up on the sensors, always quick fixes.

 

[azehnali]

If anyone needs any Xerox refurbished models please contact me
Color or B&W

 

[Ynot_UK]

The embryo for our business was an old school Roneo 865 duplicator, bought for £45 from a local estate agent with a couple of colour change drums, some 41 years ago. Whilst there are many fond memories from learning with this as a young teenager, including the accompanying 'electronic stencil scanner' which would fill the room with carbon dust whilst taking half an hour to cut a single stencil... the sheer mention of the 'D' word takes me back to the many frustrations of that machine, and how great it was 5 years later when we 'upgraded' to a Canon NP-400.

I guess these modern day Duplo and Riso duplicators are a far cry from the old Roneo & Gestetner days, and they have a purpose for some niche markets. From our point of view, they could be slightly luring for label stock and NCR, as any difficulties we encounter with these substrates are heat related. So, potentially by taking heat out of the equation, all problems go away. Had it not been for that Roneo, we may have a Riso... I guess in practice we'll carry on putting NCR through the C4080 and leave labels on the Pro951, cleaning the separation claws every 5k or so.

 

[jwheeler]

I have used a Riso in the past, registration was terrible, lines for filling out forms not even close. We used a Xerox 4127 for years for both carbonless and regular black and white printing and had lost of jams. Switch to a dedicated Xerox D95 in 2019, now have 1,499,308 clicks on it, I think we have had 15 service call since 8/4/2019, 3-4 months apart, they are mostly for dust build up on the sensors, always quick fixes.

I'm wondering how long ago you used a RISO, because registration hasn't been an issue for us. We have two running cases of NCR daily. Perhaps that was only on older models. I do agree that a Xerox D95 would work great, however the OP asked for a machine that was less than $5k new. I think the D95's are closer to the $15-20k USD...? The added benefit of a duplicator (Riso or other brand) is you don't have a click charge. You just buy the masters and the ink. With a decent volume per run, the cost per page ends up being half or even less than the usual CPC you'll see on a digital press from Xerox, KM, etc.

 

[azehnali]

refurbished D 95's are under $8K