Digital Envelope printer Info

[Sheppy]

We are looking to purchase a digital machine that excels at printing envelopes but can also handle the occasional LH, Bus. Card, Postcard etc. But mainly envelopes. We are looking at a couple of options and I was hoping someone might have experience with one or more of these machines and can give me some info and/or opinions about the machines we are looking at.

1) Oki Data C931e
2) Xante Envite
3) Formax ColorMax T4i

Any info would be greatly appreciated.
TIA

 

[PrintIT]

We had an Oki 931. Hated it.
I think 99% of the problem was the generic feeder they sold us with it. It jammed constantly with anything except regular #10's.
Then after clearing every jam it would have a long warmup time to get started again. We'd get an order for 1000 window envelopes and I'd spend a good chunk of a full shift running them. I've heard better things about the Straightshooter feeder, but no personal experience.

We have a Konica Accurio 2060 that we run all our envelopes (and a few letterheads) on now that works great for our needs. Got a good deal on a used showroom demo model.

 

[jwheeler]

shepfu

We have the Oki with the Fiery Controller (The Formax unit you listed is the exact same as the Oki, just relabeled. NeoPost also sells a relabeld Oki unit here)...we do run's ranging from 1,000 to 15,000 per order. We average 30,000-40,000 per month...almost always #10's (win and reg). It does jam more than we would like as PrintIT says. We have the Oki feeder, not the Straight Shooter. We have found that slowing it down a bit by using the higher GSM setting helps to alleviate the jams. For us, it doesn't seem to be the feeder that's jamming, but just as it's going into the imaging area. We have Konica's as well and we still prefer to run #10's on the Oki because of the ability to continuously load and unload. When we run on our Konica, we can only load about half a box at a time, then it stops, open the drawer, load the rest of the box, and repeat. Plus we have to really manage the output tray as they will tip over. When we have the occasional order for 6x9's or 9x12's, we will run on the Konica because the output stacking is not an issue and it runs faster. We will occasionally run sheets through the Oki for BC's, postcards, etc if our Konica is overloaded with other jobs. With the color control of the Fiery, we have been happy with the output, though it's definitely not as sharp as our Konica.

There are 2 other things worth noting about the Oki which I have posted about previously... one has a fix, the other does not. The unit has a qty limit of 999 no matter how you print to it (generic PCL driver or Fiery). This is frustrating when we have a run of 15,000 because we have to send the job 15 times (or duplicate the artwork to be 15 pages long). We do not do variable data...just generic return address. This has supposedly been fixed with a memory/firmware update to the Fiery controller. We are waiting for ours to arrive. The 2nd complaint is the fuser stops working at 150,000 clicks even if you're still happy with the output. It's programmed to do this. The fusers are $300-400 which isn't too bad, just frustrating if you want to try and push it further.

 

[chucknovo]

Hi -
I have a 3 year old Printware Ijet envelope printer which does a great job on envelopes - it can even bleed all 4 sides. They say it can run flat sheets like letterhead, business cards and postcards as well. We have not done that. It is great with envelopes but we found we didn't use it enough. It's in excellent shape and ready to do work for someone who has that need. They are still selling this new -
http://www.ijetcolor.com/ijetcolor-1 Let me know if any interest and I can get you more details.Thanks!

 

[Craig]

We had a Xante Impressia, left with over 4 million impressions on it. Got a Xante EN Press, not at all Impressed with it's performance. Just installed a RISO ComColor 7330 and am pretty impressed so far. Can't wait for the new feeder to be released.

 

[BobRym]

We have recently (5 months ago) installed a Xante Impressia with the Ricoh print engine, the Iqueue software and the Enterprise feeder. We've only put about 15,000 on it so far but very impressed. The feeder is a little finicky but once you get used to it functions well. Iqueue software very intuitive to use. Catalogue envelopes require the fuser to be manually adjusted (2 min job). Output is very impressive - clear, sharp as good as our Ricoh 7100 Pro. Very impressed so far - we are ramping up our marketing for envelope production and look forward to many years of use from this unit. Would highly recommend this unit.

 

[printing656]

We had a Xante Impressia, left with over 4 million impressions on it. Got a Xante EN Press, not at all Impressed with it's performance. Just installed a RISO ComColor 7330 and am pretty impressed so far. Can't wait for the new feeder to be released.

We had Riso's biggest and best GD950 (I believe) with the Fiery RIP for envelope printing in here two years ago. I would hardly call the color quality on par with any color laser I've seen in the past decade. The machine couldn't run 100 envelopes without jamming even though that was the only purpose of the purchase. For whatever reason, Riso showed little interest in fixing it and making it work and hauled it away after 2 months.

 

[BobRym]

We also run a Riso ComColor and used to use it for envelopes (only thing we had at the time that didn't involve a click charge). Used it for over 6 yrs. for our envelope production - very finicky and colour is not on par with the toner printers - however because we offered them at a much reduced rate than the alternatives at the time - we did a reasonable volume (10,000 or so a month) and made money with it. Added the Xante Impressia to upgrade our envelope production and have been very happy with it. The one we have uses the Ricoh print engine - we had looked at the previous Xante with the OKI engine but due to other experiences with that printer (we have it in a roll label printer) and the cost of supplies and parts for it - we were not interested.

 

[pippinainteasy]

Hi -
I have a 3 year old Printware Ijet envelope printer which does a great job on envelopes - it can even bleed all 4 sides. They say it can run flat sheets like letterhead, business cards and postcards as well. We have not done that. It is great with envelopes but we found we didn't use it enough. It's in excellent shape and ready to do work for someone who has that need. They are still selling this new -
http://www.ijetcolor.com/ijetcolor-1 Let me know if any interest and I can get you more details.Thanks!

We are interested

 

[chucknovo]

We are interested

Please message me. Thanks!

 

[Midwestprinter]

Just a side note on the ijet color. We have one and its only about 3-1/2 years old and we recently received an email(s) from ijet telling us our current rip is NO LONGER SUPPORTED and we should upgrade to a new system that will cost us "Only" $333.00 for 12 months. So... caution should be taken buying anything used. We have had a ton of glitches with the older rip/software and have asked several times for any firmware updates and have received non but now are being told that there is a whole new system and it will cost $4 grand...really? IJet is GREAT at 1 thing... marketing. If you want to know the truth about them just ask me or anyone else who has ran one for a while. Is it a good machine... yes its good but its nothing like what they tell you and it will be expensive to keep running. The parts and supplies are proprietary and you are pretty much stuck on buying from them.

 

[Shawnd]

We had a Xante Impressia, left with over 4 million impressions on it. Got a Xante EN Press, not at all Impressed with it's performance. Just installed a RISO ComColor 7330 and am pretty impressed so far. Can't wait for the new feeder to be released.

Craig, were you talking about a straight shooter feeder? I just saw they released one for the GD9630 and I would love to know how it works in real life.

 

[Craig]

You'll still fight the bent corners of the envelope dragging on the ink heads. Envelopes MUST be absolutely FLAT or they mark on the lead or trail edge. Believe me I put over 2 million envelopes through ours before we got the Ijet 1175P.