Memjet Envelope Printer - Astrojet M1

[joshlindsay]

Hi all,

We had a demo of the Astrojet M1 this morning at our local distributor.
Demo didn't go overly well as their was a issue with one of the nozzles which was leaving black splodges on the print.
However what we did see we liked. The speed is great and the quality higher than expected.

I have a couple of questions which I was hoping anyone with a memjet printer could answer as I believe they are all the same tech.

• The driver seemed a bit flakey and resetting to defaults every time you went to print the same file. Was this an issue with their client machine or the driver?
• We've been told that the heads last around 200k envelopes and cost around NZD$550 - does that sound about correct?
• Do you have issues with the image printing square on the envelope?
• Overall what's the reliability of these machines like?

We're currently got an OKI 9850 with straight shooter which does a good job however it has plenty of limitations the largest being price.
I've requested a 2 week trial unit from the distributor so we can properly trial it at our shop.

Cheers,

 

[damfino]

Search "Memjet" on this board and you will find most of your answers. The drive issues sounds to be local.

One caution: the Memjet cost is often equal to or greater than Oki for multiple reasons. If you know all the tricks, total Oki consumable costs are between $25. to $30. USD per M. Check out the new Oki 911 - consumable life has been extended on belts (150M), fuser (150M), and toner (38M).

 

[csudman]

One caution: the Memjet cost is often equal to or greater than Oki for multiple reasons. If you know all the tricks, total Oki consumable costs are between $25. to $30. USD per M. Check out the new Oki 911 - consumable life has been extended on belts (150M), fuser (150M), and toner (38M).

Thats just not right, Our cpm is about $1.00 to $2.00 for a standard #10 with a corner logo address print and it's WAY faster than anything oki based. We have a colordyne(they are all pretty much the same box).

Window envelopes have to run short edge feed as they do skew with a long edge feed. Which slows us down to about 3000 or so per hour on fast print.

I've replaced 90% of the things we printed on our AB dick offset press with this machine. Its NOT as good as our press was, but I've had 1 job rejected in the last 9 months and have put about 400,000 images on it.

 

[damfino]

Well, $2.50 to $3.00 alone per M just for the print-heads...

How many heads and ink cartridges for the 400M?

(FYI - My Oki 9800 does 3600 #10's per hour.)

 

[csudman]

Well, $2.50 to $3.00 alone per M just for the print-heads...

How many heads and ink cartridges for the 400M?

(FYI - My Oki 9800 does 3600 #10's per hour.)

First, I went and checked, we're actualy closer to 550,000. We've been through 1 printhead and almost 2 set of inks. I've spent 2125.00 in consumables in exactly 1 year and actualy have't opened 1/2 of the new set(we got the machine at the end of October last year). If if figure we've used about 1500.00 worth of ink and print heads, 2.75 might have been more accurate.

On normal print (we run about 60-70% of our jobs that way) and with long edge feed. We get about 6000 per hour, depending on jams and cleaning intervals. So, yeah, its faster.

 

[damfino]

Well, if you got 400M from one print-head, you've set a record.

Everyone's experience will be different, but I found the 600 dpi setting to be less than sellable in my market. The 1/2" required margin on the left forced me to run portrait too often (about 3000 per hour at 1200 dpi)

 

[joshlindsay]

The comments are excellent. Thank you all.

Our OKI is on a maintenance contract which costs us 5x more than your figure.
We've looked at taking it off click however with the magenta drum only lasting 1/2 it's life I can't see how we can make it work.

To be able to run standard window envelopes (rather than glassine) with bleed is what's drawing us to the machine.
The samples we ran actually looked better on the memjet than the OKI which was surprising.
I was amazed at how well it printed solid green - here's a sample https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3002/DMS/2013-10-31 08.34.48.jpg
That would look shocking on the OKI when you factor in the toner print and the show through of side seams.

We tried to run a custom DL envelope formed out of 130gsm Gloss art which didn't go well at all.
Had blotches and the colour changed to forest green.

One thing we saw a lot of was black streaks on the demo machine and some samples the rep had printed earlier had lines through the prints.
How often does this happen throughout a run and it is always fixed with running a cleaning cycle?

 

[damfino]

Here in the US we can get special heat-resistent polyethylene windows in the common sizes for a couple dollars more than regular polyethylene. Most customers cringe at glassine.

I would view the OKI as a disposable printer - you're better off buying it outright and paying for consumables yourself.

 

[joshlindsay]

Wish we had them here! Glassine is awful and still creases through the OKI.

The OKI is a toy compared to the Xerox 800 however I don't think it could be run any cheaper especially when the components aren't lasting as long as they should.
We did buy it outright however we pay a click for toner and service - service people who don't come to site that is.

I added a line conditioner to the machine to try stop the magenta casting with no luck.

 

[damfino]

Make sure your humidity is 50-55%. Magenta is always the most sensitive.

 

[csudman]

Well, if you got 400M from one print-head, you've set a record.

Everyone's experience will be different, but I found the 600 dpi setting to be less than sellable in my market. The 1/2" required margin on the left forced me to run portrait too often (about 3000 per hour at 1200 dpi)

Sorry, The original was counted, we are getting about 250,000 per head I guess, we are on our 2nd print head. Are you what brand are you running? The margin hasn't been an issue.

 

[damfino]

Rena.

Did not purchase after 2 month test.

 

[csudman]

Rena.

Did not purchase after 2 month test.

Gotcha, how long ago was that. The've apparently been some rip improvements from what I undersand.

 

[joshlindsay]

Gotcha, how long ago was that. The've apparently been some rip improvements from what I undersand.

Have you had any issues with vectors inside PDF's dropping information through the RIP?
3 samples I ran had full vector graphics fall or parts of logos fall off.
The big green icon on the sample I posted was meant to be at 10% opacity but it couldn't recognise it either and ran at full strength.

 

[damfino]

2 years - there have been some firmware improvements, but there is still considerable grief expressed in other current threads. Not for everyone.

"Your mileage may vary."

 

[csudman]

Have you had any issues with vectors inside PDF's dropping information through the RIP?
3 samples I ran had full vector graphics fall or parts of logos fall off.
The big green icon on the sample I posted was meant to be at 10% opacity but it couldn't recognise it either and ran at full strength.

Haven't had those issues.

2 years - there have been some firmware improvements, but there is still considerable grief expressed in other current threads. Not for everyone.

"Your mileage may vary."

Agreed, its not for everyone. It just works well for us and I happen to think dollar for dollar is the best "cheap" machine out there.

 

[joshlindsay]

Haven't had those issues.



Agreed, its not for everyone. It just works well for us and I happen to think dollar for dollar is the best "cheap" machine out there.

That's good to hear. I assume all versions would use the same driver so it was possibly something with their test client machine.
It wasn't using acrobat to print the PDF so hopefully that.

I agree. The machine does a superb job for the price.
We'll be lucky to have both options available so all bases are covered.

 

[tsprinter]

We are a hybrid offset (1 and 2 color) and digital printer (Ricoh c900). I am currently looking at both the Formax and the iJetPress (from Pressware) that are both memjet printers. Color seems to have improved significantly with the rip systems that have been developed. I looked at the Rena a couple of years ago and the color wasn't even close to being able to print. A couple of quick questions to those of you that are running this technology:

1. How are the solids holding up? Are they consistent or are you seeing streaking or banding? I am afraid that if a head becomes clogged, it will streak or over time that the ink spray will not be consistent across the image.

2. What kind of purchase price are you seeing for the various manufacturers and what are you anticipating the life of the machine to be? (Assuming the configuration includes the rip)

3. Are you experiencing any additional/extended pre-press time and wasted material tweaking colors on each job or is the rip generating fairly close color matching without too much interaction? Also, how intuitive is the color adjustment process?

4. If you had to do it again, would you do it? Any suggestions in the process?

Thanks for your advice.

 

[tsprinter]

A couple of more quick questions:

1. Do you find that you have to use special paper to achieve sufficient print quality (higher quality envelopes or letterhead?

2. Do you find it cost effective to run other products, such as letterhead? I currently am still running letterhead offset because of toner "ghosting" when the customer ran it through their laser printers when I experimented on the Ricoh.

3. Is there any real difference between the various manufacturers. All the hardware appears to be exactly the same but I don't know that it is. Also, is the RIP being designed by one company and then being licensed to the others?

Thanks again.

 

[csudman]

I can't speak directly to that brand as I imagine each company tweeks the drivers themselves, but I'll answer based on my colordyne.

1. How are the solids holding up? Are they consistent or are you seeing streaking or banding? I am afraid that if a head becomes clogged, it will streak or over time that the ink spray will not be consistent across the image. Generaly, solids are good. As long as your not talking about a large image. Streaks will arise, but are fixable with cleaning. We just ran 15,000 envelopes yesterday. First was the same color as the last.

2. What kind of purchase price are you seeing for the various manufacturers and what are you anticipating the life of the machine to be? (Assuming the configuration includes the rip) They are all about 13k-15k depending on rip etc... I would see this thing running for 3-5 years, maybe longer. Their are so few moving parts in it. It should be serviceable for a long time.

3. Are you experiencing any additional/extended pre-press time and wasted material tweaking colors on each job or is the rip generating fairly close color matching without too much interaction? Also, how intuitive is the color adjustment process? Job to Job, color is actualy quite consistant. We bought the Wasatch rip, now all we do is modify the color in pitstop till we are happy. If I am chasing a color, I can nail it or get as close as its going to within 5-10 minutes. Most projects its not an issue.

4. If you had to do it again, would you do it? Any suggestions in the process? Yes, don't buy the rip software. You can do most everthing it does in pitstop. Which you really need anyway.
Thanks for your advice.

Good luck
CJ