I need helpr to decide, Buzhub -8000, Ricoh, cannon, zerox

[Schnitzel]

Yes, the toner particles in indigo are indeed small, and they create sharp images. I never said Indigo doesn't produce good results - on the contrary. I'm simply rebutting some claims you made.

In regards to paper, I finished my Indigo operation streak about 5 months ago. I last operated a WS6000 machine, working with papers, labels and plastics. Maybe you haven't had the chance to see a tape test performed on an untreated BOPP - comes 100% off the substrate (and that is if you're lucky to get it transferred to the substrate in the first place). Untreated papers suffer from scuffs and poor abrasion and rub resistance.

The papers that are manufactured for the Indigo are pretreated in the factory. That's why they work out of the box. Try to print on offset stock and you'll get bad transfer and damaged blankets. Adhesion problems are the bane of Indigo for 20 years now, and I believe it's inherent in their technology.

 

[Craig]

But its ink (toner suspended in a solution) and it's offset... but wait theirs more. It is also more time consuming to maintain, and many prints need to be coated to prevent the image from scratching off.

Every machine has a trade off, some more than others. You need to find what fits your needs with the least amount of uh-O's once you start production.

 

[MailGuru]

@iprint4u: Be careful here: ".......My thought for the operator would be a graphic designer, most have been to college, have a brain and understand software, even if they don't get color theory, and most do not as it applies to offset printing. I have hopes that with what they know about software and maybe sending them off to get I believe it is called G7 training, a graphic artist may have a real opportunity in the digital world to expand his ability to actually produce what the client is looking for, previously the graphic artist has a pressman in between the client and himself, having started as a pressman many years ago, I know this can be tough to get past....."

There's a big difference in graphic art design as it applies to variable digital in relation to offset. In offset, your end result will be to burn a plate. If your art isn't very "efficient", (transparent, overlays, layers, etc.) it really doesn't matter. So what if the CTP burn takes 20 minutes, instead of 10 minutes. It's no big deal. However, if your spooling 10,000 variable image or variable data records to a digital printer, that "inefficient" art may result in a job taking hours and hours to send to the rip instead of minutes. It's a different world when designing art for variable digital runs.

 

[iprint4u]

Very good point, well taken I must say,

I was speaking of print, just print, no matter how good the design is or how it looks on the screen, a pressman, could be either a solution to bad art or a problem with good art,. I think that the graphic artist in general may not have the issue I speak of as much with the digital print environment. I am all for the GA, they are somewhat being pushed aside in the trade as everyone with a pc and a $79.99 program from costco is now a graphic artist. I so want the GA back into my print world for sure, we used to have a 1/2 dozen press checks a week, now it is a rarity. I am old and I guess I just long for the days of professionalism, when graphic arts was truly an art, from concept to completion, from design to finishing. Honestly many of the older group, the offset folks, see the digital world taking the creative end away, and I see it bringing it back , just on a new and different level. There is no replacing a true graphic artist and no replacing a true craftsman on a press operator level, the "how quickly can I get it" and the "hang em and bang em" attitude toward print production has me looking forward to a new challenge, a challenge that I see being achieved somewhat creatively with the digital realm of commercial print.

Having said all that, I really never even considered what you are talking about, I honestly short sided variable to just addressing, that is clearly not the case. It is clear that one could get in some serious trouble accepting customer furnished variable data files which included full page art and not just addresses??. So, how does one over come this or prevent it, are there design programs we should stay clear from or not except, I know we did not like coral draw files much in the old days, but we took them just the same, we did not like folks that did color in certain word doc programs , but we took those as well. It se3ems now that the programs are in a suite version I hear far less complaints , except for querke files, I know we don't really like those much but the newspaper guys use this program almost exclusivity, do mac or pc versions opf these programs make a difference . How does one bill for this primarily, we do bill for rip time now in the offset environment. You have opened up some serious concerns for me, thanks , I think.

I sure appreciate this forum and the time people spend helping one another, thanks so much for your reply.

 

[MailGuru]

Been in the industry for over 30 years, but, the advantage (sometimes a dis-advantage) I have is that I never came up through the offset print world. A computer programmer by trade, I somehow ended up in the digital print and mail world (go figure). That having been said, I, too, long for the days of professional craftmanship, but, alas, production and profit has pushed those days aside.

When we put out a help-wanted ad for a Graphic artist, we don't call them graphic artists, we call them "Digital Production Artists", or "Pre-flight Technicians", anything other than Graphic Artist. For every 10 that we've hired, only one or two of them actually worked out. They just couldn't wrap their mind around designing for variable image, variable data.

As far as software goes, we use (and, I think it's pretty much the current industry standard) Adobe InDesign, which is part of the Adobe Creative Suite products. This product will be used to set up the initial templates and art layout. Together with this, you will need a software product that will allow you to swap-out pictures, images, text, etc based on a key field(s) in your data file. There are many packages out there that will do this for you (PTI Fusion Pro, PageMaker, GMC, Planet Press, Mailshop Pro, XMPie, etc.) We use XMPie, which, is a company owned by Xerox, but, it will push to any printer, regardless if it's a Xerox printer or not. We like XMPie, because, not only is it very powerful, it is relatively easy to use. Once installed, it's acutually a "plug-in" to Adobe InDesign. You get to it while in InDesign by a drop-down menu off the tool bar. Since you are light-digital, the desk-top version of XMPie will probably do the trick. Once you get heavier into digital you can upgrade to the Server versions, which, tend to get a little pricey, but, can handle much more complex variable jobs faster.

Just for the record, I am not affiliated with Adobe, Xerox, or XMPie. We actually cut our teeth in the digital world with a product called Planet Press, but, as we matured through variable digital, we found we needed something more powerful and faster. That's why we switched to XMPie.

 

[Manatarms]

Thank you for your comments, this is awesome ask a question and get an answer. This booklet maker deal has troubled me from the beginning, I have one on my 6501 but oh my is it slow. I looked at a plot,matic or something of that nature, it is offline and fast and I agree, even stronger now, I am going to skip the booklet maker in line. But I do like that folder, gate fold and such, nice thing to offer on short runs.

Again thanks so much for the reply, greatly appreciated.

I'm a bit late to the thread, but if you didn't pull the trigger yet, here's my two cents: The SD506 Saddle stitcher is a decent unit, I have one connected to a KM1200 and previously had it connected to a C7000. I typically feed it gloss text or cover, that has been cut and creased on a Duplo DC-645, and use the KM post-inserter unit. Overall, it works, but it is not "fast" and depending on what you're printing, you really should looks at an offline unit. I would get together a few booklets that represent a typical job for you, run it on the C8000 with the SD506 and then run the same through a competing offline solution. Make sure you run more than 10...run a 100 or 200 booklets to get a feel for the idiosyncrasies of each solution.

-mark

 

[Denart]

I am late to the thread also

I am late to the thread also

We used to use several kyrocea machine in our sop while transitioning more to the digital side. the office supply side of my company was a kyrocea dealer, and they got special deals. It worked soso.
We now have a Konica Biz-hub. The diffference in quality and speed is outstanding. So much so we are now dealers for Konica also. Kinda nice since the service is done in house, by our own technicians no down time to speak of.
I hated digital print for a long time, it was replacing me, a really crappy feeling. But times change, and I am throughly impressed with its capabilities.
LOL, been around long enough to have hated colors seperations made on the computer. It was a craft making a color seperations on a camera. But honest to goodness, what I spent hours doing on a camera and dark room can't hold a light to the quality that a computer can do.
I am just glad I am old enough to rtetire and not worry about digital replacing me. You vcan bet your butt somewhere engineers are working on high pile large format presses.
The industry is changing so fast it is hard to keep up with.

 

[iprint4u]

Men o man do I resemble that remark, I think all of us who made separations with a camera , light table, rubylith and screen angles can now take those skills and apply them to the digital market for one last hurrah, the advent of film and plate setters was not that kind to us. The digital print scenario used to scare me, but now I embrace it daily, I can actually make clients happy again and I have a hand in doing so. Mostly in finishing, anybody can buy any copier , but can you finish the piece effectivly, yep you can, not inline, not offline, but near line, long live digital print.

 

[Craig]

If there as a forum back in the day you would have read the same thing when shops transitioned from letterpress to offset. All you are doing is applying your skill set in a different manner while learning new stuff.