Advice please on what printer / press to purchase

[df3000]

Hi All

Im hoping for some advice / recommendations and real world experiences!

We currently produce and sell personalised prints in A4 and A3 size direct to customers. We have been using a re-badged Xerox Phaser 7800DN for the past six months, which has given us a good start and done what we wanted it to do

However there are a number of drawbacks with the machine - quality of colour tones, greys and photos being one! We get very mottled colours, lines in tones and poor quality photos - but I should expect that as the 7800DN I dont think is designed for that level of detail

We are expanding and getting more and more enquiries, more complex designs and more need for photos - so we are at a point where we need to upgrade to a higher quality machine

We only run around 2 - 3000 prints per month at present so speed and handling are not important to us - we expect this to increase to around 5 - 7000 per month once we get more lines on board.

We run most of our prints on 300gsm Xerox Silk, and rarely duplex - although it would be nice to have a machine that can easily handle 350gsm and duplex upto 300gsm

We are looking to add more invitations and photo invitations to our range (and even business cards if we can get upto 350gsm), so the colour quality and photo quality are the most important factors we are looking for

All finishing we do is completed offline, so aren't specifically looking for any inline finishing (although I notice alot of second hand machines have this included)

We are based in the UK and have a budget of up to £10k, so hoping to get a reasonable quality second hand printer / press that can give us much better consistent quality and also give us the opportunity to print more volume and offer more products

Have been looking at Xerox and Bizhub machines - although would look at any manufacturer and printer

As mentioned speed not important, but being able to print solid colour tones, greys without mottling and photos that look good are the top of our list

Any recommendations, advice or areas I should be looking in (plus any experiences) would be greatly appreciated

Many thanks. Jon

 

[chrisg42]

I would have thought that an OKI/Intec/Xante machine would fit the bill, bearing in mind your budget. Buying a larger machine second-hand could turn into a service nightmare, unless you have a good source of spares and a tame engineer. Alternatively, have you thought about talking to a local digital print specialist about having the jobs printed for you? Competitive rates should be available for a steady stream of work like this and then you could have your jobs printed on a machine that is "out of your league" as regards ownership.

 

[df3000]

Hi Chris.

Thanks for the reply. I have had samples from Oki and Intec (the Intec version was just a rebadged Oki printer), and I was quite disappointed with the results. The text was not sharp, and not a patch on the Phaser 7800 for text quality, and the colours were poor IMO as well.

Ive thought about going to a local digital printer, as you mention, I will get the quality for a fraction of the price and no headaches!. They only thing that puts me off, is losing control and the ability to produce and print jobs on demand - although it may be the only option for me (which wont be the worst thing in the world - just nice to explore the option of a bigger and better machine).

Understand your points as well regarding the servicing nightmares etc, as well aware of the costs and problems involved. Would certainly be only looking at fully refurbished machines with engineers reports and full servicing once I purchase - if of course that is the route that I go down

Thanks again for your advice. Thanks. Jon

 

[AP90]

http://x-digital.com

These guy's name have been floating around here for a bit. I've talked to them and got prices from them but never purchased from them. Another member did and said they are a stand up company. Guaranteed FSMA from xerox so service shouldnt be an issue. You could get a 700 with finishing options for right around your budget I believe.

 

[wonderings]

Maybe contact some of the big guys, Xerox, Canon, Ricoh, etc. Our first digital machine was a Doc 12, slow and already outdated, but we purchased it from Xerox and had a service plan/click charge with it that was reasonable. Mind you, are volume was more then what you have. You might find that the big guys have an old unit, or a client that wants to get rid of an old unit, slow and out of date but for your volume would still be a good machine and should handle those heavier stocks much nicer.