Any printers happy with Xerox 7002 or 8002?

[stacyg]

KC,

We have a tech here now on his second full day watching us run jobs, etc. and tying to figure out what's causing a light streak and spot in cyan as well as inconsistency in color. They've replaced numerous parts. Sorry, I don't know what all they are.

I think we're getting better slowly. The only reason I'm not absolutely furious is that there is a whole support team of techs and our sales people and their supervisors that are trying to make us happy with the beast and we're an hour + out of their major metro area of Memphis. (this guy keeps coming 6 hours from Nashville) They are stumped now because it looks like we've got too much and too little oil at the same time. If he can't get it, they're saying they'll send someone down from Rochester. So, at least they're working on it. Just keep a log of all your issues, parts, calls and hopefully they can figure out how to improve this thing.

We have agreed to use pre-boxed papers "for digital" as often as possible rather than cut our offset sheets. The C1S, C2S heavyweights seem to still have the most issues. That may be helping.

 

[KCJared]

Stacyg, did you have your "advanced productivity training" yet?

 

[stacyg]

We got about 10 minutes of how to clean the cortrons and are being told they've not decided what all to include in the training yet.

Did you pay "extra" for the training?

 

[Craig]

"Advanced Productivity Training" that's paying attention to what the tech is doing and fixing it yourself when their gone

 

[CSimpson]

Sales Pitch = We are a solutions based company who will partner with you and help grow your business.
Installation Training = Install machine and have a trainer/sales person look like an idiot trying to find the power button.
Productivity Training = Problem? Call the 1-800 number and tell someone who doesn't understand english that a part is broken. The tech will arrive early the next morning look at the machine and verify your analysis. At which time, the tech will explain how they are no longer allowed to keep that part in inventory, so you will have to be down another day while the part is being shipped in. Pray that the correct working part is being shipped to the correct address and give thanks that they outsouce shipping to profesionals.
Advanced Productivity Training = Run approved/certified paper, none of which is available at a competitive price in your area. Lease two machines to ensure redundancy so you can avoid the pitfals you learned about in Productivity Training.

The funny thing is this applies to all digital printer companies.

 

[UberTech]

Sales Pitch = We are a solutions based company who will partner with you and help grow your business.
Installation Training = Install machine and have a trainer/sales person look like an idiot trying to find the power button.
Productivity Training = Problem? Call the 1-800 number and tell someone who doesn't understand english that a part is broken. The tech will arrive early the next morning look at the machine and verify your analysis. At which time, the tech will explain how they are no longer allowed to keep that part in inventory, so you will have to be down another day while the part is being shipped in. Pray that the correct working part is being shipped to the correct address and give thanks that they outsouce shipping to profesionals.
Advanced Productivity Training = Run approved/certified paper, none of which is available at a competitive price in your area. Lease two machines to ensure redundancy so you can avoid the pitfals you learned about in Productivity Training.

The funny thing is this applies to all digital printer companies.

That bit really made me laugh.

 

[Milo Wilson]

I have been an independent Xerox tech for about 15 years now, working on black and white office printers to Docucolor 8000 and larger, and I have always noticed that when there is an issue that the Mother Xerox tech has trouble fixing/understanding they seem to start falling back on "paper issues" or "humidity". Given that in some circumstances there are valid issues with both, these are used more often to buy time to troubleshoot.
I have never worked for Xerox directly but I love their products, from the Igen3 to the 1090 analog copier.
I have only come across, in my 15 years, a handful of issues that have boiled down to paper or humidity.

 

[Craig]

CSimpson - That would be a LOT funnier if it wasn't so DAMN TRUE!!!!

 

[stacyg]

Just an update. An engineer flew in from Rochester a few weeks ago. Spent 2 days here with a "specialist" said it was within half of tolerance and looking great and left while I was at lunch. First job off was a pantone blue that STILL has a huge color variation across the page and in steaks/hot spots down the middle.

Now were being offered a choice of different boxes: A 700 which I'm afraid won't hold good ftb registration and we'll outgrow too fast. A 5000 from which samples also color vary across the page. Or, the new 800 which will probably come in above our price range.

We do a lot of postcards, business cards and SPOT COLORS. Advise please!

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

What is your average clicks per month? what size paper?

 

[stacyg]

Past quarter, we're at around 44,000 clicks per month and growing.

Run almost everything 12x18, including a Carolina C1S 12pt for postcards that Xerox hates.

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

I have 2 DC5000AP's and don't have the color issue you are reporting on either of them. I've run the X700 before and we should be getting one by the end of the month. On that volume there is no question (in my mind at least) the X800 will come in too high. My quote was $5500/month without the clear and a $0.053/click with commitment. We push between 300,000 and 500,000 clicks a month and couldn't get Xerox to budge on the $0.053 rate. Coming from a $0.045 rate, that is $2,400/month minimum right there!

Also keep in mind the X800/1000 is brand new and they have 0 "installed" units in the US.

The X700 is very good quality but you will have to manually duplex everything above 80# CVR. Also, you will hate the registration compared to the 5000/700x/800x platforms. (It's still pretty good at +/- 1mm FTB but it's not the big steel boxes.) Don't forget the X700 will slow-down BIG TIME on the 100# Text and above where the 5000AP won't (DC5000 non AP will).

Now for the bad news on the DC5000/AP (either). Right now, and the past 4 months, there is an issue with the drums lasting only about 2-5K before the cleaning blade dies and you get streaks. We go through about 24 drums a week between the 2 machines we have. It took a lot of yelling to get a sufficient supply on hand as they kept bringing me 3 a day for 2 machines.

So in this case your options are:
Current Box - Stay with broken machine (Devil you know)
Xerox 800 - Pay way too much for unproven technology (Devil you can't afford)
Xerox 700 - Print good quality but a pain in the backside to get it out (Slow-Devil)
Xerox DC5000AP - Fast, decent quality, but you gotta watch it like a hawk (Needy-Devil)

Good Luck Choosing...


Hope this helps.

 

[RKS]

700

700

We currently are running between 120,000 to 150,000 full size sheets on our 700 per month. Xerox/Fuji will be in together tomorrow morning to give us a quote on the 800. We did a demo with a lot of our files 3 weeks ago and the 800 did extremely well. Hopefully we'll see if they're pricing get's any better. Supposedly they have extra funds to help 700 customers upgrade to the 800. We'll see.

The 700 does have inboard/outboard color problems from time to time. But a specialist with a densitometer taking about 3 hours get's back in shape. Xerox is having problems with drum cartridges that they started sourcing domestically instead of getting them from Fuji/Xerox, and I would have to say they stink. Hopefully they'll get them fixed.

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

Xerox is having problems with drum cartridges that they started sourcing domestically instead of getting them from Fuji/Xerox, and I would have to say they stink. Hopefully they'll get them fixed.

I was specifically told the X700's drums were not having issues by Xerox. You are having them die way before their expected yield?

 

[RKS]

Yes, these new drums that are not made by Fuji/Xerox in Japan are dying early, plus sometimes have scratches in them. Also, the pressure rails are not the same from side to side, therefore causing the inboard/outboard problems. We had problems for 4 weeks, until they forced an order to get 6 of the Fuji/Xerox drums in for us. If we put the new style drums in, we have nothing but problems. They say you can take the end-caps where the rails are off the Fuji/Xerox drums and place them on the new domestically made drums and they should work. That does help the inboard/outboard problems a little, but that doesn't stop them to last longer.

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

Where are you located?

Thanks.

 

[stevejacobs]

We had a new Xerox 7002 installed late December. Still having issues everyday with every job. Xerox is "working on it" but are mainly implying that we must recalibrate and readjust to every job as well as run an extra 100 sheets at the beginning of every job to "warm it up". Also, telling us they can only guarantee quality on Xerox papers.

We're a pretty small shop and some jobs are only 100 sheet runs. Not to mention the expense of Xerox papers.... We like to cut our own big sheets and use too many varieties to limit our customers to that.

Desperately needing advice from printing companies experienced with the 7000 or 8000?

I'm trying to decide between Kodak 3000 and HP 7000. Any feedback?

 

[docurley]

Just an update. An engineer flew in from Rochester a few weeks ago. Spent 2 days here with a "specialist" said it was within half of tolerance and looking great and left while I was at lunch. First job off was a pantone blue that STILL has a huge color variation across the page and in steaks/hot spots down the middle.

Now were being offered a choice of different boxes: A 700 which I'm afraid won't hold good ftb registration and we'll outgrow too fast. A 5000 from which samples also color vary across the page. Or, the new 800 which will probably come in above our price range.

We do a lot of postcards, business cards and SPOT COLORS. Advise please!

Can you do me a favour and open a job then go to the tab marked Image and tell me what your Digital Press Mode is set to (I use 200 Dot Rotated) and use this setting to Calibrate my printer.

If it's set to something different change it and do another proof to see if it's any better.

If you use different weights you may want to calibrate the different weights of paper as this also help on the colour side of things.

Give this ago and see if it's any better as I tend to get better results using these settings.

 

[docurley]

Ok just looked at my Log book and this is what they had to do to fix the issue on my printer.