Konica C6501 - is this a good idea?

[elixir]

Greetings -

We are considering purchase of a used C6501 for production of VDP 4/4 postcards on cover and card stock, primarily 12x18 & 13x19, printing from PDFs composed & imposed through Fusion Pro Desktop.

We are not printers but mailing service providers with a background in black/white VDP. I’m most interested in guidance from other users on this machine and its suitability, durability & on-paper performance. Why this machine? It is used by others in this area, who have produced similar print for us. We however need better price control & turnaround times. And there are a number of these available.

We would likely require somewhere between 2500-5000 sheets of above size per week.

So, my questions:

Is this machine suitable for the task described?

What should we reasonably expect as throughput speed for the above?

We would likely self service this machine – we are comfortable with this approach on other equipment, is anyone else running without a service contract?

Any particular machine configuration to look for, or to avoid?

Advice on what to look out for in a used machine?

Spares/supplies to have on hand?

I’m sure I’ll have more questions…

Thanks in advance!
elixir