Need help with Printer Selection - BW

[Road]

I've been lurking in this forum for quite a long time, love reading it. I'm envious of some of the amazing machines you guys run and amazed your knowledge about printing. About two years ago I began doing my own direct mail for my business. Simple 8.5 x11 BW fliers on a little bit better than avg paper #28. I was lucky that I have a friend in the printer recycling business so he started hooking me up with rebuilt HP9050's. My small business grew rapidly and I started a direct mail company to offer my services to others in the same industry. I now use 5 HP9050's and a few HP 5550's (for very limited color jobs) I run about 150k prints a month on BW and am working quickly towards 200k+. The 9050's are cheap to print on and easy to maintain as one of my employees used to rebuild them for my buddy. They however are not with out their printing quality and paper jamming issues. We are pretty hard on them with long multi hour runs. Often we will run a 30k print job on 3 while we run a 10k on the other 2 which makes for 3-6 hour print runs. For their speed they take up a considerable amount of space and generate a ton of heat. I would like to have fewer machines that run faster with higher quality with less baby sitting. High cap feeders and outputs on the 9050's are a source of jamming thus we don't use them. I have been told by a local vendor that for BW the Xerox workcentre series is a strong machine 5875 etc and it would be better than a D95 press. This same person recommended for color the 570 over the 700 since 100% of my jobs are duplexed and it has better registration. My print costs have to be carefully managed as my margins are very small. Right now I am under .01 on consumables and maintenance.

My business is growing however the thought of a long term lease scares me a bit. I think that in the long run HP9050's have their limitations and increase my labor costs and frustration level. It seems like my choices are:

1: Get on a new or used machine lease so that I'm am not in the printer repair business
2: Shut up and stick with what I have
3: Get into a few other used machines that have good maintenance and printing costs (xerox wc5890, or an Oce perhaps?)

Thanks for your help!

 

[namelessentity]

I dunno if it's super realistic, but maybe see if you can find a use Varioprint 6000. They print both sides simultaneously, require very little maintenance, and they almost never jam.
We have a 6320 and it's the best b&w I've ever run.

 

[Puch]

You have to go inkjet to maintain that low cost. Take a look at HP PageWide, there are really capable machines available now. Then buy a third party bulk ink solution for them.

 

[MailGuru]

For B&W, we are using a Konica Minolta Pro 1250. Very Fast (125 pages per minute). Click Charge is about half what you're paying now. BUT, remember, this is a Black & White only machine. All color printers will print Black & White, but, the B&W click on a color printer is much higher than what you are paying now. If you are looking to add color, you are never going to get a click charge that low.

 

[Road]

I dunno if it's super realistic, but maybe see if you can find a use Varioprint 6000. They print both sides simultaneously, require very little maintenance, and they almost never jam.
We have a 6320 and it's the best b&w I've ever run.

That vario is amazing...I'm in love with the duplexing! Pricewise it may be out of my league for the next year or so. I definitely want to see it in action and find out what their costs look like.

 

[Road]

You have to go inkjet to maintain that low cost. Take a look at HP PageWide, there are really capable machines available now. Then buy a third party bulk ink solution for them.

I have a low volume version of the pagewide I picked up to check it out. It is smoking fast and is inexpensive per copy. I do worry about the duty cycle on them 80k recommended is way less than what the 9050's are. On the other hand they are cheap. Can you point me in the direction to the 3rd party ink solution? I had no idea they existed!

 

[afilsonCSA]

I dunno if it's super realistic, but maybe see if you can find a use Varioprint 6000. They print both sides simultaneously, require very little maintenance, and they almost never jam.
We have a 6320 and it's the best b&w I've ever run.

Thanks for the great feedback, its always great to hear a positive customer experience!!

Our VarioPrint 6000 series has an outstanding reputation for reliability and very low costs. We at Oce'/Canon, would love to show you all of the options available that may fit your need. Feel free to contact me and I can connect you with the people at Canon.

Thanks again "namelessentity" for the positive feedback.

Allen Filson
Sr. Manager Professional Services
Canon Solutions America

 

[halmac]

We have a Canon Oce Varioprint DP135. WE have coveted the 6000 series but the 135 is wonderful. Make sure you get the continuous stacker. It has 6000 sheet capacity and keeps printing after disgorging the first 3000 sheets. The quality is superb and has required little extra maintenance. There is now a faster model called the Varioprint 145.

 

[Road]

For B&W, we are using a Konica Minolta Pro 1250. Very Fast (125 pages per minute). Click Charge is about half what you're paying now. BUT, remember, this is a Black & White only machine. All color printers will print Black & White, but, the B&W click on a color printer is much higher than what you are paying now. If you are looking to add color, you are never going to get a click charge that low.

Do you use the air feed option? I only used #28 and lighter right now I would like to do some postcards later on though. Not sure if the air feed is a big deal. I'm looking to move on B&W first. I just don't have much demand for color as few are willing to pay for it. Thanks for the feedback. I read a lot of your responses on the forum. I remembered your name because I do mail

 

[MailGuru]

Do you use the air feed option?

Yes, it's air feed (vacuum feed). I didn't know it was an "option" though. I think all KM Pro 1250's have vacuum feed standard. Vacuum sucks the paper up off the stack and attaches to bottom of feeder belt which pushes paper through the printer. Very good system, very few jams. When we set about looking for a B&W printer, we needed something that would run card stock. We looked at the Xerox 43xx series, but, the duplex curve was too small to auto-duplex card stock (350 gsm). As you can tell from my other posts, I'm partial to Xerox. The only B&W printer that Xerox offered that would run card stock was their Nuvera line, which was too expensive. That's why we went with the KM Pro 1250. We've run the crap out of for 4 years now, it, it just keeps trucking along.

 

[jrsc]

I think most people on here are suggesting way too much machine at way above your budget. Oce 6000 is way more than you need and very expensive. I think you were on the right track to begin with. You would do well with a D95. Make sure you get the oversize high cap feeder and high cap stacker. You can skip the regular finisher since that's junk. If you can find a dealer that will sell you a lightly used pre owned you should be able to get one for 10-15k. Cost per copy should be well below a half a penny. We have 2 D125's (same machine but faster) and we run over 600k large size sheets on each of them every month and they run well. It's about the cheapest workhose BW you will find for basic stuff. We also have a Ricoh 1107 (similar price but doesn't run as well) and a Ricoh 8220 (awesome machine, quality, and paper handling but expensive)

 

[Craig]

Honestly, Ricoh paper handling is great, as long as it is white paper. My 8120 hates anything color and the paper catalog is something from 1995. Definitely not getting another Ricoh!

 

[jwheeler]

Yes, it's air feed (vacuum feed). I didn't know it was an "option" though. I think all KM Pro 1250's have vacuum feed standard....That's why we went with the KM Pro 1250. We've run the crap out of for 4 years now, it, it just keeps trucking along.

MailGuru...glad to hear you're happy with our 1250's! They are great workhorses. We have customers that have 20-30 million + copies on them and they just keep going. As for the vacuum feed, it is optional as there is also a PF-706 friction feed air assist drawer option. I don't have any customers with it on their machines because the vacuum feed is so much more reliable as there are no feed tires to wear out or slip. The only time I'd recommend the friction feed to save a little cost is if the customer never plans on running any coated stock...or very small percentage of their work.

Road...the Konica Minolta Press 1250 has a little brother called the Press 1052 which is the same engine, just 105 ppm instead of 125 ppm if speed isn't super critical, you can save some cost. It still offers all of the same vacuum feed trays and finishing capabilities. It's still a 30amp power so it prints great on coated paper too for your future ideas. Another in-between option is the 1250P which is the same as the 1250, but it doesn't have the document scanner for making copies...it is a printer only. If you don't plan on doing coated stock, the littlest sibling in the family is the Konica Minolta Pro 1100...which is 100 ppm. This unit does not offer vacuum feed drawers and it has a lower power draw at only 20 amps. It's a great workhorse built around the same design as the 1052 and 1250, and would handle 150k per month without missing a beat on regular 28# paper.

Lastly, all of the b/w models I mentioned come with our own KM controller which rips the files very rapidly...in fact, it starts printing while the job is still ripping instead of waiting for the rip to complete. We also offer a Fiery and Creo controllers if you prefer those, but be aware that those add extra cost.

 

[Road]

Just an update. After some offers for three year leases with materials at 876 monthly for two used d95 at .005 a click, i was offered and bought a d125 from a friend on a buddy deal for 4k. I love the machine and the quality is an amazing difference. I do think the decision not to lease was sound as we are growing quickly and im hoping to get into the varioprint 6k volume in the near future and move on up. I cant get past the duplexing print engine on it. Every other machine out there we lose half speed on.

Thanks everyone for your input!