HP Indigo 7600 vs iGen 4 110...

[ShortRunMagazines]

I have three Xerox 8080's and we are having major color issues on them (Like a delta E of as much as 13 from target within 24 hours of a full profile.)

Xerox Service over the years have been great. Over the last 6 months, horrid. We print about 400K 12x18 4 color clicks per month between the machines and are still growing at a rate of about 20-25% per year in click volume. They are saying my only hope for that kind of volume while keeping the click in check is the iGen platform. Ironically they want more per click for the 110 over the 90 but I can't get all my prints out in a single shift on a 90 -- I would have to add another press operator and go to a 10-12 hour day in press. To me it seems BS to charge more on the 110 over the 90 when most of the parts are the same and I'd just be racking up a larger bill faster with the 110.

We are also looking at the HP Indigo 7600 with EPM. (EPM is the three color printing -- just CMY and no black channel.) In all reality, a good chunk of our work could easily pass using EPM mode (Like 50%). The savings of EPM would be nice, but the speed increase is what really attracts me to this product (160 LTR prints per min vs. 120).

So my questions are severalfold.

1) Have you seen the iGen 4 90 cost less to operate than the 110?
2) Anyone using EPM have any thoughts on it? Is it as easy to select as the HP Rep said?
3) HP Indigo claims I should have "uptime" of about 80% (meaning I am able to be printing revenue generating product 6 hours out of every 8). Based on your experience is this possible?
4) Xerox claims iGen can have "uptime" of as much as 90% (meaning I am able to be printing revenue generating product 7.2 hours out of every 8).
Based on your experience is this possible?
5) Our plan is to replace all three machines with just one of these larger presses. Which press would more like, in your opinion, be able to handle the load in a single 8 hour shift?

Thanks for your insight into this, I really do appreciate it.

Jerod.

 

[Kunnajar]

You could try to attach ORIS software to your presses. Our contact said their delta E went down from 7 to 2 with it.

It might be a cheaper way to resolve your case.

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

We are color correct, we have tried Match Assure (Xerox's product), CMI Color Management, and Profile Maker 5. The problem is not creating the profile, it's that the machines seem to swing wildly when turned off.

 

[adub47]

Just switched from and iGen3 110 to an HP5600. We were a xerox shop for about 12 years. It was a learning curve at the beginning but there is no looking back now. Would absolutely take an indigo over any xerox product. Color consistency can be achieved almost right out of the box. We've had our indigo for almost two months and I've seen a tech in our shop once due to a faulty tray. EPM has worked for us in a so/so fashion depending on the builds of files. If you have control over all of the builds in the files you print EPM could be a saver for you. Problem with us, client sends rgb files or whacky cmyk builds sometimes the results are not ideal. Especially when running heavy blacks, which could sound obvious in these cases.

Indigo has completely out performed any xerox product I've used, most recently the iGen3. Quality doesn't compare.

 

[EthanWa]

I thinking HP Indigo 7600 better

 

[Craig]

Hey Jerod - Just make sure you get the cost for installation and operation of the equipment. If you don't have 3 phase power, you'll need it and it ain't cheap if you don't have it on a pole near by. Also I have seen electrical estimates of several thousand dollars a month to keep an iGen going. Your iGen Tiger might just gloss over that too.

I'm not a huge fan on relying on 1 single piece of equipment with that kind of volume. We avg. 120,000/month on a single 8080 and feel the pain when it goes down. I can only imagine the backup you will have!!!

 

[MailGuru]

Craig's right. If production, and meeting deadline commitments is your goal, you really need to have more than one piece of equipment. We have (2) Xerox 8000AP's and (1) Xerox 8002.

We have backup redundancy built-in for every aspect of our business, from our internet access (main is through phone line, fail-over is microwave), to our servers (one main, one duplicating, one backup), through to the printers (three colors and three black & whites), even out to the bindery (two Duplo Booklet Makers, two cutters, four folders, three inserters, etc.).

When scheduling large runs, we never count on all 3 color printers being functional throughout the entire run, even though it does happen on occasion. Most of the time, at least one will always be down for one reason or another - you can count on it.

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

We already have three Xerox 8080's and are losing our butts. Today for example. One unit was down from Friday, tech will be out by 10:00am. 12:30pm the tech showed up. Another machine had died by that time. First gets "repaired" and tech moves to second, we try job on first and it's still doing the problem that was originally reported. It is now 3:55PM and I still only have one machine. This is not an uncommon day for us anymore. I get redundancy, but when everything reliably breaks, it's time for a change. (Oh, and our bindery also has duplication, two hydraulic cutters, two bookletmakers, and two perfectbinders.)

The source problem is the multiple machines that "provide" my redundancy, are costing me customers because I can't get the color to be accurate on the 8080's and Xerox won't do anything but say "I agree, it doesn't look right" (about a blue sky photo that is obviously purple -- Delta E of approx 7 from target -- Largest measured variance when the equipment is "in good working order" was Delta E of 13).

 

[Craig]

What I would do if you pull the trigger on an iGen or Indigo is keep the "best" 8080 for back-up. One thing to look at is the scratching of the Indigo prints. Make sure that is not an issue too. BTW, our colors are holding pretty good, but registration front to back likes to jump around. Have you thrown the term "like for like" out to the service manager yet? Maybe that would get your problems resolved a little faster.

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

On the 28th of February Xerox Customer Relations Group received a letter legally executing our "Total Satisfaction Guarantee" on all three machines. We have not heard a peep on it yet. Xerox just left us with an IGen proposal. Equipment is good, Click is not great (I've been non-disclosed so don't ask the rates) but I am still getting a bad taste in my mouth from them ignoring us for this long and refusing to cover costs incurred over the last 205 days. I am currently thinking I may give Ricoh a shot.

They did admit that the color was not within spec so I guess that is something.

 

[WharfRat]

Well, one thing ...
the iGEN 3 was very crappy.
The 4 is great. With the new matte toners.
The 150 is - well the verdict is still out.
It prints great
but we call service a bit much.
Not anywhere close to the 3
but we rarely called in for the 4.

MSD

 

[Craig]

So the moral of this story is.... even the "Flag Ship" can't provide any more reliability than the office equipment!

So for Shortrun, maybe the best advice is to get the competition (Ricoh, Konica) to install a test machine and put it through the paces with your regular workload. If they want the long term business and a chance at knocking the big X out, they might go for it.

 

[Mark Flanders]

Greetings,

The Ricoh (C901) prints and holds color pretty well, but isn't up for the volume. I'm currently an in-house Indigo tech for an on-demand factory, so I am biased in favor of the 7600. There will be a learning curve until your operator is trained and the machine has settled in, but the Indigo is a workhorse. I do endorse the idea of keeping one of your current machines as a back-up. I have also heard that the Igen4 is a much improved product from Xerox. Good luck!

 

[arossetti]

Mark: How often does the indigo go down for service, not maintenance? And service that cannot be handled in-house but would require parts and time? I'm intrigued by the indigo's versatility and ability to also do 1 color work for a competitive price and at a high rate of speed.

 

[Mark Flanders]

Hi,

I don't currently work on the 7600 in particular, though I do service the 7200 Web which is also a Series 3 machine. (our sheetfeds are currently 5000/5500s) I would predict the usual handful of troubles after the initial install, and then I think 70-80% productivity is a good planning number. (this would include both maintenence and repairs) HP service techs are good, and the press purchase includes training an operator up the "Shared Maintenence" level which, if you have a good person, means you can do-it-yourself. Order parts online for next day delivery, troubleshoot on the phone with someone in Boise and the like. (I am spoiled here, as we have multiple machines, allowing me to swap parts for testing and such.) They love to run. If your volume is spotty, it seems to lower up time. Hope that helps.

 

[Josh]

Hey Shortrun,

Interested to hear what happened with this?

If I remember right a year or so ago you went from DC5000s to a ColorPress and got this taken out too? It seems like BigX aren't doing too well in your shop!

Did they propose an 8250 at all?

J

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

Hey Shortrun,

Interested to hear what happened with this?

If I remember right a year or so ago you went from DC5000s to a ColorPress and got this taken out too? It seems like BigX aren't doing too well in your shop!

Did they propose an 8250 at all?

J

Ok, time for an update... Since I have not been non-disclosed on this I can speak freely about how our install has gone. First let me say the Arizona Team as a whole for Xerox leaves a lot to be desired. The sales team sold us an allegedly "gently used" iGen 4 110. (Please note: I cannot go into details on pricing due to non-disclosure.) The gently used machine showed up with a serial number that didn't match the paperwork, 14+ million clicks, and looking like crap cosmetically. (For the record that was 2 days after the iGen was to be completely installed, we were to be trained and it was to be at full production capacity.) Well, the installer looked in the back and realized that it was tower two from an iGen 220 and not a 110 at all. Rochester NY ordered that the install be terminated at that time. So we sat, and sat, with two thirds of our production capacity removed and no progress on the install of the iGen. Finally a week+ later the new, used iGen 110 shows up and they remove the hulking pieces of the previous one. After that, we find that our three weeks of training is now 1.75 weeks and we are starting while they are still installing it.

The iGen takes several days to start passing paper and we find one bug after another. (Oh, and they forgot to ship the computer that controls the iGen so we had to scramble to get one of those.) A good chunk of our training is actually spent with the trainer working with the local service and engineering to get the iGen within spec. Training ends with the trainer getting on a plane stating that the last several issues should be fixed "soon". As problems progress, Xerox Corporate decides the better solution to the problem is to blame the customer for lack of training, paper, power, basically we are at fault for everything. This continues for a while until I raise cane with Corporate HQ (Which if you are reading this and have issues with Xerox Corporation, call 203.968.3000 and ask for the officer of the day) and get the trainer and installer back out. They find a number of issues that we reported to local service (to which they said, "oh, that? that is normal") are not repaired and spend the first 3.5 days of our additional week of training bringing the unit back within spec.

So, they leave again and we get our stupid little certificates stating we are iGen trained. And the problems continue. We honestly don't believe we have a weekday between install and today, other than the Fourth of July, that the iGen was not down in some capacity. Lately, we have to calibrate the 200 dot screen to get the 175 dot screen calibration to pass without throwing a code. Anything with the ATA system (Acoustic Transfer Assist -- for textured stocks) seems to throw a ATA Power Supply Overcurrent code from the first page to several hundred. Once that starts just reboot the iGen (a quick process of only about 15 minutes if you stand by the machine and do everything immediately it needs) it generally will keep throwing the code until power cycle.

Oh, lets talk color stability... Right now, the iGen is as stable as sand. It's all over the place. 10 six page documents yielded 10 different colors of backgrounds. Over the course of 45 minutes (with the tech's on site) the color scores of the "Engine Check" went from 10(C) 9(M) 10(Y) 10(K) to 7(C) 5(M) 4(Y) 4(K). I've seen the scores actually drop by calibrating (or TRC Linearization as Xerox calls it). Who knew, the fix for bad color can make it worse!

So, you must be thinking, this Jerod guy is just impossible to please, it can't be this bad. Well, I haven't even gotten to the Fiery. It has so many issues I can't honestly remember the count. Using APPE (Adobe Print Engine) grayscale may click color mainly on crop marks. Color substitution doesn't work at all from what I and the EFI Trainer can tell. Rush print stops the machine and idle's it for several minutes. The work-around for that is break your large jobs into smaller chunks (ie. 10 groups of 50 instead of 1 group of 500) and use "Print Next" or "Move Up" of more pressing jobs. But wait neither one of those work, so the work-around to the work-around is to use "Rush Print" and deal with the wait. But wait, if you "Rush Print" to many times (sometimes more than 0) it will ignore your "Rush Print" request and just finish the job and then run yours next, whenever that is. It also won't keep a log of how many were run if you cancel a job mid-run. The machine goes days without errors and then other days it will throw "Image Transmission Faults" every couple of minutes. (Which EFI claims is Xerox's fault and Xerox says is EFI's!)

Short answer we are completely thrilled with the install! (Seriously, if you think I'm happy with "the Big X" please see above!) I reported issues on Friday of last week, got 5 or so hours of pseudo production on Monday, Zero (0) today, and are waiting on parts for tomorrow. Oh, and the local service organization is grossly understaffed and they keep yelling that it's an average of 4 hour response... Can someone please help me? How does 5 hour + 4 hour + 6 hour + 5 hour average to be less than 4? Oh, and the crown on top was getting told on June 24 that we had to sign for the iGen by June 28 or it would be removed. The alternative was 30 days with 1 of our 3 8080's to find replacement equipment as they refused to put the 8080's back in under any circumstances due to "it's inability to perform to the standards set fourth in the CED". We had no choice but to sign as we could not complete a sales cycle, negotiation, shipping, install, and training of replacement equipment in that time. Hell the iGen itself took over three months of trying to get a price nailed down (mostly Xerox delays, not us).

Thats my (sadly) brief summary of our install. If I could throw this thing in the street, I would in a second.

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

Ok, two things I forgot. Power bill went up about $1300/month since install and today the Executive Customer Relations Group lady outright asked me what would be acceptable given the fact that Xerox can't apparently live up to the CED, or the promises made in the sales cycle.

 

[Possumgal]

What would be acceptable? Oh, I can imagine what you'd like to say.

Tell them that buying you an Indigo would be acceptable.

 

[arossetti]

Ok, two things I forgot. Power bill went up about $1300/month since install and today the Executive Customer Relations Group lady outright asked me what would be acceptable given the fact that Xerox can't apparently live up to the CED, or the promises made in the sales cycle.

How many shifts do you run? And is the $1300/month comparing it to a month that an 8080 or 800 was running in its place? Also is that $1300 with the machine barely running due to service? So is the iGen mainly in standby during the month that the electric went up $1300?

Start building a case and sue Xerox if needed to have it removed.