Digital Decision

[bompi]

I am in the process of evaluating various light production digital presses and have narrowed the competition to the Xerox 700, Xerox 550/560, the Ricoh c720/c900 and the Canon 9075 pro. I wanted to evaluate KM but they have no presence in our southeastern location.

We are currently a traditional offset printer that outsources our full color work but now believe we can affordably transition to doing this in-house and would like some advice on both equipment and staff training on prepress differences and workflow.

We anticipate at least 30,000 clicks/month with our current volumes and would expect that to grow as we target more full color work and understand what we can shift from our offset to digital. I would anticipate 50,000 within 18 months. Stock will primarily be 80# uncoated/coated text, 80# uncoated/coated cover, and 100# uncoated/coated cover. We will also be shifting some of our short run one and two color jobs to this machine where it makes sense from a cost standpoint.

Main concerns are:
1. Color quality and consistency - all the machines above have run our test files and seem to have done well. (Xerox 700 ran better on linens and laids but seemed to have a tough time with some flesh tones in some pageant program covers that we run. These were run by the sales guy, who has no real training on the unit so it could have been just user error.)

2. Reliability and uptime - obviously it costs money to not be able to run jobs, not to mention I am OCD about delivering on what I promise, when I promise it.

3. Registration consistency - we will be doing fairly large number of 4/4 business cards, brochures and newsletter and this will be important.

4. Ability to grow with my business. If I can grow this to 60,000 - 75,000 per month, can the machine keep up?

4. Pricing is important but takes a back seat to the issues listed above as a couple of hundred dollars per month on a lease is not a make or break deal.

Thanks for your input and assistance!

The rule out the canon now, since it is actually an office printer with some changes incorporated in the production range.
Since going quickly with 30,000 copies month, would exclude even the xerox 550, you'll find it soon too small.
The Xerox 700 is definitely a good car, but the copies 50/60000 (to SRA3) are its monthly range of work, so after 18 months you may feel the need to have something more productive, but certainly a good one to start .
The Ricoh is a great machine, xerox costs as a 700 but makes a lot more production, the sheets come out perfectly flat and no problems with further processing (cutting, folding, stitching, creasing and laminate) has the oil but produces more prints opaque to other printers without it.
In any case, the Ricoh is the best new C901s, and a new oil-free toner, 90 pages per minute with all the weights.

 

[JMMNS]

Are you using the Ricoh 901s in production yet? If so how is it's color consistency and reliability

 

[benny123]

canon 9075 is fine. I know people putting 80k a month on them without a worry. It has a lot of good technology in the box for the low price. If the volume grows you can easily move into a imagepress 6010 or 7010.

 

[msaeger]

Msaeger,

I now understand what you meant. Being a Ricoh tech, I know this may be throwing you a meatball, but waht are you seeing from uptime and consistency with the 720? I am beginning to lean that way but don't see sufficient feedback to make me "warm and fuzzy" yet. I have talked to some Xerox 700 owners and have gotten pretty good feedback. Feedback makes it sound like a good machine to start with and will be fairly reliable for first few years and then may outgrow it. How would you position the Ricoh vs. the Xerox?

Thanks

I don't know anything about the Xerox but I would get referrals of real customers using the machines and check them out. Anyone working for the seller is going to be biased.

 

[bompi]

canon 9075 is fine. I know people putting 80k a month on them without a worry. It has a lot of good technology in the box for the low price. If the volume grows you can easily move into a imagepress 6010 or 7010.

I state that I speak of the printing SRA3 and in my experience certain machines are not sufficient to print books than copies 50/60000 month, obviously if you have a way of working which allows you to print copies of the 2000/3000 days, then the machine can actually print much more. But for example in my case, I am a print magazine in A4 format, with a minimum of 24 pages and print runs ranging from 500 to 1000 copies, so I find myself having to print a very high volume of copies in a very short time and some machines are not capable of handling such high volumes in a short time.
So I speak from my own experience, where I got to experience all this in my job. We need a machine that can withstand peak printing demands in a short time, a good color constancy on this type of runs and a high reliability printed for fewer still possible, the machines that reflected these features are few KM8000, Xerox 7002/8002, 7000vp Canon, Ricoh and 901, these include the Ricoh is the one who had the best value for money.
The best print I've ever seen however, with regard to printers and toner Xerox 1000, but has a cost too high.

 

[prepressdude]

My two cents worth

My two cents worth

We, too, are a traditional commercial print shop running four sheetfed presses along with a full finishing department (saddle stitch as well as perfect binding). We installed a Xerox 700 the end of June on a trial basis. In roughly 2-1/2 months of run time we put a little over 150,000 impressions on it.

The machine is AWFUL, AWFUL!! We were incredibly disappointed with it. Color "consistency" during a run of 1,000 was nonexistent. Front to back registration bounced all over the place. If we had a run of 1,000 or more we could count on having a tech in the building the next day. On average we had a tech in the building 2-3 times a week.

And Xerox themselves were TERRIBLE to work with. For example, during the "free trial period" the agreement is that we pay for our own toner and other "replaceable" items that would normally be covered under a lease contract with your click charge. Our first month's bill was over $10,000!!! We asked Xerox to work with us on it but they would have none of it. Bottom line...Xerox will NEVER be back in this building.

The flip side of that is Océ (which just merged with Canon). We replaced the X700 with a CS665, which is a rebranded KM box. AWESOME machine! It's everything that the Xerox was supposed to be. And now that Océ has merged with Canon they're giving these boxes away, if they have any left. And the first week of January we're getting a Canon 7000 installed. If you haven't already I would definitely give Océ a look. We've been very pleased with our service and the machine itself.

 

[Tbiller]

Thumbs Down for Xerox. Suggestions on where from here?

Thumbs Down for Xerox. Suggestions on where from here?

We too are a commercial printer moving to add digital to our offerings. We too got the 700 and it SUCKS!!!! DO NOT GET ONE. It feels like we have had as much down time as up time. We have a large hopper in the room for the waste as there is so much of it. Consistency is non existent, misfeeds and jams regularly, quality issues, never lines up back to back and it feels like we are down more than up. We are trying to get out of our contract now.

I was starting to think that we might have to fork out the cash for a more production oriented machine like an indigo or something. Otherwise we are probably going to look more closely at the Konica/OCE offerings and the Ricohs. Anyone had any experience with these in a production environment? We are at about 70,000 clicks per month and we are only a few months into this, we have more business signed and close to it and expect this to double fairly quickly.

Suggestions anyone? Like the initial poster, I'm especially looking for feedback on reliability (but perhaps with heavier usage.)

Thanks all. It is hard to get this kind of information without cooperation with other consumers.

 

[che.c]

I find that the 700, while having some irritating habits, is generally decent to run - as long as you know what you're doing.

No 'digital press' (they're photocopiers.. bear this in mind and modify your expectations accordingly, don't trust the sales pukes) is just press the green button and go, especially if you're looking to integrate into a litho workflow and be somewhere close to that standard and consistency.

That said, I'm not over the moon with the machine, but most of its problems can be worked around reasonably effectively and efficiently once you get to know it. Coming from a 240/260 combo to 700/260 is great being able to duplex coated stocks.

For one example, the registration is generally very good but does go a bit funny, for instance my 700 sometimes decides to start drifting towards the trail edge on long runs and now and again shifts 15mm towards the feed edge outta nowhere! New reg unit on order though, although I suspect it may be a case of rolling the software back rather than hardware failure.
Have to keep an eye on it, but if you spot it, is easy to stop the machine doing that.

 

[Josh]

I really think Xerox have shot themselves in the foot a little bit by retiring the 5000AP machine.

Basically there range now goes like this:

550/560/700
MASSIVE GAP (i.e a £100,000 gap)
7002/8002 (which don't work)
Color Press 1000
iGen3 (refurbed)
iGen4

I think the 5000AP machine provided the (almost) perfect starting point for commercial printers (not copy shops) going into digital... tighter registration, heavier duplex stock weights, higher duty cycle etc. But it's really obvious from the recent posts that Xerox are pushing the 700 where it just isn't going to fit.

EDIT: I've just had a look on the xerox site and the 5000AP is still listed on there, however the word from the engineers and reps is that it's end of line. Not quite sure what the situation is really.

 

[salecha]

I have a Ricoh Pro C900s for sale. Would fit your needs perfectly. 1 is a Print/Copy/Scan version with only 53,000 impressions (showroom model). Comes with Stapler Finisher, Booklet Finisher, Large Capacity Tray and Fiery for your color needs. 1200 x 1200 dpi extremely good graphics. Asking $55K.

[email protected]

Greetings.Which model of Fiery you are offering. What are click charge for color & mono.

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

I really think Xerox have shot themselves in the foot a little bit by retiring the 5000AP machine.

Basically there range now goes like this:

550/560/700
MASSIVE GAP (i.e a £100,000 gap)
7002/8002 (which don't work)
Color Press 1000
iGen3 (refurbed)
iGen4

I think the 5000AP machine provided the (almost) perfect starting point for commercial printers (not copy shops) going into digital... tighter registration, heavier duplex stock weights, higher duty cycle etc. But it's really obvious from the recent posts that Xerox are pushing the 700 where it just isn't going to fit.

EDIT: I've just had a look on the xerox site and the 5000AP is still listed on there, however the word from the engineers and reps is that it's end of line. Not quite sure what the situation is really.

Xerox Direct is no longer selling the DC5000AP as new. You can only get them through the CAST system (used/refurbed). I am looking right now and have quotes on the CAST 5000AP. It seems the price has gone up (again) on it since December.