KM c6501 or Canon 6010??? I need some help...

[JStrike]

We are trying to decide between these two machines as we move to an in house print environment. We have been able to compare using our most frequently used stock and a sample of many of the types of things we do (Postcards, weekly booklet, posters). The Canon image quality wins hands down IMO but I would like to get some input on reliability - like most of you, down time is a drag, even in the non-commercial environment.

We would be adding saddle stitch and face trimming to either to eliminate the offline booklet making which we do weekly.

Both dealers are great and I have heard nothing but great things about support/service. This is a huge purchase for us and we would like some more input from the real world...

Thanks!

 

[William1Will]

I have an HP 6500 e790 and it is so cool to print using wireless

 

[overscan]

We are trying to decide between these two machines as we move to an in house print environment. We have been able to compare using our most frequently used stock and a sample of many of the types of things we do (Postcards, weekly booklet, posters). The Canon image quality wins hands down IMO but I would like to get some input on reliability - like most of you, down time is a drag, even in the non-commercial environment.

We would be adding saddle stitch and face trimming to either to eliminate the offline booklet making which we do weekly.

Both dealers are great and I have heard nothing but great things about support/service. This is a huge purchase for us and we would like some more input from the real world...

Thanks!

Any reason you're not looking at the km6000?

 

[MacDaddy]

I have the KM with fold and saddle stitch happy with quality and most important our service guy. Looked at the canon before purchase I like the way the prints looked off the KM . I would look at the KM 6000 improved quality and has the option component to re-humidify paper helps with static.

 

[StrikTenn913]

I would recommend asking both companies to show you their version of what they call a 'customer expectation document.'

They should also both be able to find you a current reference customer you could talk to about performance of the engine in an actual in-plant or production environment.

I used to work for Canon and can tell you from hands on experience the 6010 (and that family of products) are impressive machines.

I don't have hands on with the KM products, but I know they penetrated the market very well leading with their low price point. To go along with the earlier comments, the bizhubPRESS C6000 is the newer product from KM compared to the C6501.

 

[rcreveli]

We recently upgraded from a Bizhub 6500 to the 6010. They are Apples & Kumquats. We chose the 6010 over the bizhub 8000, why.

Massive throughput gain over the 65xx series. Even though the 6010 is a "60ppm" machine it is faster than the 65xx series on just about every stock. we've seen jobs get produced between 1.5 and 2x faster just because of that.
Better baseline color (KM Machines run hot yellow & magenta in my experience)
Better spot color matching than our 6500
Better stock handling than our 6500
Heavy duplexing than the 8000 (the 8000 runs 350 GSM but only duplexes 300gsm)
brilliant paper management
This may sound minor but the standard drawers on the 6500 were crap we ran everything out of the big side drawers. On the 6010 all of the drawers are identical build and all load the same way.

Get the customer expectation documents. They are very different machines.

 

[lfelton]

OP - you are not comparing like for like:

* The 6501 is a discontinued product (at least in the country that I'm in)
* The 6010 must be at least 3 times the price of a 6501. The 6010 should be compared with the km8000 as they are nearest in price. I believe that Canon has a product in the 6501 area (Imagerunner?), though remember you should be comparing this to the km6000, not the old model 6501.

FWIW we've run 6501s for a couple of years in a high volume environment and have generally been pleased with them. I wouldn't buy a 6501 now because technology has moved on and IMO you need to evaluate current generation machines, not discontinued models. Having said that, I expect that a used 6501 could no doubt make money for a startup type organisation if bought at the right price.

 

[overscan]

OP - you are not comparing like for like:

* The 6501 is a discontinued product (at least in the country that I'm in)
* The 6010 must be at least 3 times the price of a 6501...

Have canon bumped up their prices. Last year at ipex the 6000 which was then the current machine for canon was being offered for around £50k.

 

[lfelton]

Sorry, my bad. Canon were pitching 7010s to us recently which we were (from memory) in the mid 100Ks each. I thought that 6010s were slowed down versions of the same machine and assumed would be something like 20% cheaper. If the 6010s are 50K then they are clearly different engines completely. I thought the sales guys did say that the 6010s were the same engine, but may have misunderstood.

Another thought - are you sure you're not talking about the bare engine cost? Our specs were with 2 paper feed pods, 1 hd stacker, plus a decent rip. The bare engine was about half of the total, but of course would be good for next to nothing in a production environment.

I'm still right that the 6501 being discontinued? I'd hate to think that I was misunderstanding everything

 

[rcreveli]

The 6010, 7010 and the VP Versions are the same engines. The x10's run slower than th x10vp's because on the VP's the second fuser is always ready. The x10's require 220 while the VP's require 3 phase.

 

[overscan]

Sorry, my bad. Canon were pitching 7010s to us recently which we were (from memory) in the mid 100Ks each. I thought that 6010s were slowed down versions of the same machine and assumed would be something like 20% cheaper. If the 6010s are 50K then they are clearly different engines completely. I thought the sales guys did say that the 6010s were the same engine, but may have misunderstood.

Another thought - are you sure you're not talking about the bare engine cost? Our specs were with 2 paper feed pods, 1 hd stacker, plus a decent rip. The bare engine was about half of the total, but of course would be good for next to nothing in a production environment.

I'm still right that the 6501 being discontinued? I'd hate to think that I was misunderstanding everything

Have to admit we were looking at the canon 6000 non vp at the time with most basic spec for input and output. All our finishing is offline, and even the speed of the machine (within reason) isn't important to us, just output quality.

Reading between the lines the days must be numbered for the km6501 platform as the only machine left is the 5501. I reckon that as soon as they've sold off the last of them they'll introduce a 50ppm device based on the 6000/7000.

Went for a demo of the xerox 1000 today. Was very good. Seems to be a machine that ticks all the boxes for us (after demo'ing every other viable machine in the past year) . Waiting for a quote, then have to figure out how the devil we can pay for it :-S

 

[ajr_oce]

I know both machines very well (we used to sell KM and now we are selling Canon). There are 4 reasons why to buy a imagePRESS over a KM6000/7000 (this is the successor of the 6501)

1) Paper input technology
The KM engine uses friction feeding with air support, but just for the production trays. This limits media runnability (friction feeding caused static which makes media sticky and jam) The 3 normal trays only have friction. This is office technology and causes major issues if you want to run (offset) coated stocks or heavy stocks. A lot of media only run from tray 4 or 5, which basically limits your # of trays to just 2. Canon imagePRESS has advanced feeding technology consisting of multiple air flows and heating mechanisms, including vacuum feed and air seperation providing excellent media handling. his argument is proven by the media specs: imagePRESS can run coated media from 70gsm. The KM starts at 115 gsm (for coated). Media specs are directly related to the engines quality of media handling!

2) Color consistency technology
Causes for color inconsistency are fluctuations in temperature, humidity and waring (corona, developer). The symptoms are... color inconsistency. imagePRESS offers deals with both the causes and the symptoms. The imaging unit is air conditioned thus ensuring stability of temperature and humidity thus eliminating two of the three causes (unique feature in this segment). It also has a real time symptom checking technology. Each proces color (cmyk) prints a patch on the transfer belt between every image which is measured. If the measured value is out of bandwith it automatically adapts ensuring consistent colors.

3. Registration technology
The KM engine has tray driven registration. The 0 point for registration adjustments is the entry point into the engine (the tray) and the duplex loop. Based on these 0 point you can set an image shift on the transfer belt. Tolerance for a KM6501 is 1mm, which adds up to two mm front to back. Problem with this method is that the more media you use, the easier you make mistakes. You have to remember for each media which tray you used for registration settings. If you are not sure about this you have to register each media before printing, costing you about 15 min per media. This adds up during a production day. imagePRESS is equippend with active registration, shifting the 0 point from the tray to the registration module in the engine (just before image transfer). The registration module puts the media always in the same position before image transfer. This makes registration media dependant in stead of tray dependant. If you register a media once via the media catalogue, it applies these registration settings when you print on this media. This saves a lot of time and it is also a guarantee for making no mistakes. Further the tolerance of registration is 0,5 mm compared to 1mm for a KM.

4. Fusing technology
The imagePRESS has two fusing units. The VP versions run on constant speed for each media. The non VP uses the exact sames technology but has a (artificial) speed decrease on heavier media. So the first advantage is higher productivity on heavy media. A well kept secret is that the two fusers of the imagePRESS are not the same. The first fuser uses a belt and a roller. Normal fusing is done by two cilinders applying pressure and heat (about 200 dC) at very high speed. The point of contact with the media and the fuser rollers is only a milimeter (2 cilinders touching). The combination of the short contact, high temperature and speed is instable causing image issues, eg banding and cloudyness in solids. The first fuser on the imagePRESS uses a belt that presses the media to the fuser roller creating a contact surfact of about 5 cm. This means that the transfer of heat and pressure is done more equally giving you better image quality.

I n all fairness I think a KM 6000/7000 is a different class of engine and compares better to for example a Xerox 700. An imagePRESS is a real production engine. On top of that the **10 vesion is an updated version of the **00 version. This is an evolved version with stat of the art technology.

So... easy choice.

I am happy to provide more infor if needed

 

[billp]

hello ajr_oce,

your comparison is very helpful, please could you advise is there are any other differences beside speed in the vp model? also any chance you could outline some similar comparisons with ricoh c651ex please? thanks adrianjt

 

[JustinB]

I own a Canon 7000vp and concur with everything ajr_oce said. The difference between the 6010 and 6010vp is the second fuser which keeps the machine running at full speed. I truly average about 31 impressions (not pages) per minute on 13x19.2 300gsm.

We use the saddle finisher regularly and I'm always happy with what I get.

Both of my technicians confirmed that the face trimmer is great and doesn't slow down book production at all. I don't know about the additional 2 knife trimmer though.

After reading some of the horror stories on here from people with the km and ricoh machines, I'll stick with Canon.