No I don't have access to pricing, but I don't imagine it will be a significant increase
You should first know that it is required with many configurations depending on the finishing equipment you get. But yes, when I used to sell production gear for KM, I would always recommend the RU-518 if they could fit and afford it. There are so many benefits to it:
- It is a decurling unit which you can control in either direction to make sure your sheets come out flat.
- It has multiple cooling fans to immediately decrease the temperature of your paper
- It has built in densitometers to monitor color density on the fly. You can tell the printer to output density check sheets every xx number of sheets and these will exit to a different tray so as not to mix in with your job
- The big change on the RU-518 vs the old RU is the added exit tray. This is helpful for the shortest paper path and for sheets that you don't want to pass through any finishing. Sheets from the engine will also automatically exit here if there's a jam in the later finishers. Lastly, the tray is useful for output of banner sheets since it has an extending arm.
Side note, it may sound silly, but I also recommend getting a status light (~$300). We have 4 KM's here at my shop, and when printers/finishing equipment are all running, you can't hear a machine stop through the noise. It's helpful to just look across the warehouse and see the indicator lights that the machine needs attention.