DC700 freeflow to fiery conversion- the Saga continues

[Jolly247]

Hi guys, I am very new to this forum and the Digital Printing world. I am the owner of Xerox DC700 which I bought used for a reasonable price. The machine appears to be in good condition and the counter is at 2M impressions (total). The Machine came equipped with FreeFlow Print Server and yes everything works fine. The machine is not used for commercial printing but rather for the in-house publishing of books in up to 5 copies (sometimes less). I found it extremely difficult to find a print shop that was willing to do such a small quantity of prints and in such different sizes for a reasonable price, that we need for our use.
As I mentioned The machine is not used commercially so a yearly subscription for freeflow is a bit problematic. The service tech who set the machine for me mentioned the option of Fiery RIP, which I have to find myself. I am searching for one for a while now but no luck and lately I found out that there are more options than I was aware of.
Since I don't know much about the topic and I am not finding any reliable information I am politely asking you guys for any good suggestion on switching the freeflow server with Fiery RIP. I found that Fiery EFI is one option but it's really hard to find and mostly very pricy. I also found something called Fiery E10-02 and I can't find much information about the thing.
I would like some information about which options are good for me and maybe also some ideas about switching and problems I may encounter. For now, I probably have no choice and I will have to extend the license, but in the future, I would like to avoid yearly subscriptions.
Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions. And do take into account that I am in Europe (Slovenia to be exact) and probably all options are not available to me, and I don't know how regional thing is affecting me.
Thanks again Jolly

 

[azehnali]

the xerox 700 is considered antique these days
you can find bustle fiery for that model under $1000 all day long

 

[Jolly247]

Thanks for your effort but it does not really help.
Let me phrase it differently. I am looking for a Fiery rip to replace my Freeflow server. I am finding something called 700 Bustled Fiery EFI RIP 097N01764 ita appears that this OK for my machine, but I can't find one available at the moment. Then I found something called Fiery E10-2 witch also appears to be OK for my machine. But as I understand E10-2 is a controller (not sure thou), and I don't know if this is OK or do I need something else with it? I am finding very little information about these things and I am hoping to find an answer here.
I know these machines are considered to be antique and in Europe, I don't have any luck finding one, or I don't know where and what to search for.
I found one Fiery E10-2 without cable, does this means that I can use the cable from my Freeflow server?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Jolly

 

[azehnali]

I think you should look in the US market
EU tends to not have as much in options
there are only two fiery options on the 700
the EX-700 and the bustle fiery
both are more than enough for you to run 5 books a day
when the 700 (15 years ago) was in major production people did thousands of books daily on both fierys
you can find the bustle fiery on ebay all day long

 

[Jolly247]

Hi.
I did some more research, it seems that Fiery E10-2 is not for me... more for an office printer. For Bustle Fiery RIP no lack so far and I was searching for one before. As for the EX700, I can find a few on eBay... one from Germany for a reasonable price but without software, one for an unreasonable 3,5k EUR, and one from the USA for 1k$. None of them are really good, since my license expires in less than two weeks, even an option from the US is not very good at the moment.
I was only looking at eBay, I don't know any other source. Maybe I will have to accept a license extension for now and upgrade later...
I am slowly losing my mind.
Thanks again for your input.

 

[azehnali]

there are much bigger problems in the world
just but a fiery in the US

 

[azehnali]

there is an ex for $1000 and a bustle for $700
like I said they are available all day long

 

[Bjorgvin]

Just find someone to sell you a lifetime license for the FreeFlow server, that should be cheaper than buying a used Fiery

 

[Jolly247]

I was never made aware of this option and I spoke to a Xerox representative for my country. A yearly license costs me around 800EUR, I managed to find used ex700 for around1200EUR so by this logic in the long run ex is cheaper. But I will definitely check the option for a lifetime license. Realy I never heard about it.

 

[Bjorgvin]

Check this: DocuColor LifeTime Non Expiring License

 

[Jolly247]

Hmmm. This does not look very official. But thanks for the info... Maybe I go this route haven't decided jet. At least I have a few options now. But altho a bit expensive ex700 probably the best option (I found one close to me), especially if I do more serious work with this machine.
Thanks for the suggestions, now I just have to sleep on it.

 

[Jolly247]

Hi guys,
I managed to get my hands on EX700, for which I was sure there would be no problems, just Plug and Play, but it seems it's not so simple. Apparently, there are some compatibility issues, between my machine and Fiery. There were numerous restarts made and sometimes even handshake print is made. But when I try to make additional test print error 45-360 (or 45-361 or 45-363) is spet out and restart is required. I basically can't make a print with ex700. The test page that I managed to print is fine snd that confuses me, why sometimes the test page is OK, only after rebooting both machines. The service guy is saying that I have to change the interface board witch costs double what I paid for DCP700. FreeFlow on the other hand works fine, copier itself also. I tried 2 cables and the same story.
Is this problem of software compatibility or is it really a hardware compatibility issue. I am sure I will find the solution (as last resort I still have the option to extend the existing freeflow license)
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Jolly

 

[bcr]

You might try posing the question about the error messages on the copy tech net forum. If you do leave out all the other detail and just focus on it being a replacement fiery with error messages

 

[Lankey]

Not sure about Freeflows but when i changed my creo (was very glitchy with paper jams and settings etc) to ex700 (never would have thought it would have made such a big difference to paper jams must control the timing of the print better somehow) i had to change an nvm number (google suggests 45-360).
I used the cable that came with the EX700 fiery.