Advice on shortlist for B&W

[lfelton]

I need to get a B&W machine, what should be on my shortlist?

Volumes are tiny at the moment, say around 70K a month, increasing to around 150K over the next few months.

I need it to run SRA3 so that we can do docs with bleeds, reasonable f-t-b registration say around 3mm max overall. Ideally would like it to be able to run a wide range of stocks, not just standard copier paper.

All manuals & books, so not interested in a duplicator.

What's the options new / used, what features should I be looking out for?

I hear that the Xerox 411x machines are good, but the low end Nuvera's have a bad rep. True / False? Any other machines to steer clear of?

 

[Craig]

Ifelton, As much as I like my Ricoh MP9000, the short fall would be the registration f-t-b. I am able to adjust things to make it work, but sometimes it takes 15 to 20 mins, usually 1.5 - 2mm off though.

Other than that it will do everything else, 8.5 x 5.5 up to 13 x 19 - 20lb text to 80lb cover. The Interposer for post fuser inserting works like a champ. It prints beautiful halftones for a B/W copier, we print programs with photo's all the time. With the high capacity feeder we can load 8,000 sheets 8.5 x 11 at a time. The offset finish tray holds about 3,000 sheets. It has a 320 GB hard drive, 1200x1200 dpi, Network scanner that scans in color. A few CRU's, cleaning web, waste toner, even drums.

Shortfalls are registration if you want 1mm or less, the duplex tray is mostly plastic and will ware out after 2.2MM to 3MM prints. Drum life is about 500K and it doesn't do well with gloss paper at all.

Our volumes have been anywhere from 50K to 900K per month, with almost 10MM on the box now. I would recommend it unless you were going to be pushing 400 - 500K a month, every month. Then I would say to look at a Nuvera. I think the bad rap came when they first launched the line. Much like everything else, manufactures are rushing to launch a new product and things fall through the cracks.