Km 1051

[intryck]

Our local KM sales rep is trying to sell us the KM 1051 BW printer and I'm looking for opinions on it.

My biggest concern is the Emperon print server it's configured with, since I'm running a Fiery rip with the C65hc and our Xerox 252 and I'd like to be able to control the 1051 from command workstation aswell (compose, preview, templates, settings etc.) According to the sales rep adding a fiery server to the 1051 would cost alot of money and is not needed.

Also, the sales rep claims the machine does not slow down from 105ppm A4 on duplex, nor on 60ppm A3 duplex regardless of paper weight. Can someone confirm?

I read some bad stuff about the 1050 and would like to hear from someone with experience of the 1051.

 

[UberTech]

He is right the 1051 nor the 1050 slow down in duplex, it stays the same speed. The sheets of paper per min does half, otherwise you would be looking at 210 page machine. With Oce they have a tandem engine that prints both sides at the same time, the rated speed of that is ppm not sheets per minute also.

The Emperon controller on this new machine is pretty kick arse but if your used to the fiery workflow then it's probably won't be your cup of tea. The alternative is micropress which is a really expensive option.

If all you do all day is print sheets to the machine do the odd staple job or punching then it really isn't worth the money. If you do lots of mixed media work, imposition or complex collating then it is a god send. Also you can edit pages live on the micropress (which you can't do with a fiery) such as cut and paste. If you are trying to match the dot pattern of a compeditor you can alter dot shape, pattern, screen to mimic this. Every 1050 we have sold has had a micropress, those who upgrade to 1200/1051 won't buy one without it.

 

[intryck]

I'm basically in need of a working Compose-equal on the 1051, for example gangup business cards and add trim marks. Bringing them into InDesign is a bit of a hassle.. Otherwise I'd have to load the pdf into the fiery, compose it, save as a new pdf and then print to the 1051. Which is also more hassle than I'd like.

Going back to the printerdriver after a testrun to do the full job compared to just editing copies in command workstation and printing is also something that bothers me.

 

[UberTech]

Micropress does have custom gang-up printing so things like business cards or 2-up are a whizz. Infact you can create your own gang-ups which is slightly more power-full than SeeQuence (impose/compose).

Not sure what RIP you are running on your HC but you can get a license for the micropress to drive multiple engines not just KM, ricoh, canon, not sure about xerox. So you could run your HC and 1051 from the micropress (not 100% on the HC but certainly any c6501) but it does need to pass thru a rip such as what you have on your HC at the moment.

The colour flow on the last version of micropress wasn't that flash and I haven't had the opportunity to see it in the latest release but one would hope they have addressed this.

You could buy just the software and dongles to save some money and load it on a PC but the micropress is a Harlequin RIP so it converts everything to a TIFF which is pretty resource hungry, the latest one I installed was XP 64bit and 16GB of ram, bit of a monster.

 

[Steve0]

FYI, in the EFI world, you don't need MicroPress just to do impositions + crop marks. All you need is Fiery Impose (not Compose). The Fiery driver itself has some imposition capabilities, but not nearly as extensive as the Impose package.

Steve

 

[UberTech]

I'm basically in need of a working Compose-equal on the 1051, for example gangup business cards and add trim marks. Bringing them into InDesign is a bit of a hassle.. Otherwise I'd have to load the pdf into the fiery, compose it, save as a new pdf and then print to the 1051. Which is also more hassle than I'd like.

Going back to the printerdriver after a testrun to do the full job compared to just editing copies in command workstation and printing is also something that bothers me.

FYI, in the EFI world, you don't need MicroPress just to do impositions + crop marks. All you need is Fiery Impose (not Compose). The Fiery driver itself has some imposition capabilities, but not nearly as extensive as the Impose package.
Steve

As he spoke of earlier