Neopst Mach 6

[printing656]

I was glancing at the must see 'ems for GraphX16 and they listed this product and the Neopost AS-650. Does anyone have links to learn more about the Mach 6? I couldn't find anything in my searching. I was an early adopter of version 5 and have been waiting for a better product to be released.

 

[damfino]

Perhaps you are referencing Rena's (Neopost's) version of the Astro S1 - not sure what they will call it. Same engine as the Mach 5, but with a 10" throat (can print 10 x 13" envelopes) and a touch screen control panel. Beefed up feed wheels and a straighter path. Can handle up to 1/4".

Will have to wait and see if the scuffing/marking issue which has plagued the original has been addressed.

 

[BilLongua]

We are very excited to introduce some great new products, so please be sure to visit the Neopost booth at Graph Expo (booth 900) so you can see the Mach 6 and AS-650 printers in person and learn all the exciting details! They are the best printers we have ever made and will surely be hot products. I can't share anymore at this time - more details to come in the near future. Contact me for free show passes.

Sincerely,
William J Longua
Senior Director
Neopost Digital Print Group

[email protected]

 

[printing656]

damfino,
I think you are correct. It would appear to be slightly faster and hopefully more refined/user friendly than the Mach 5. Unfortunately, it's still the same overpriced ink and print head that Astro and Neopost have a monopoly on and can some how justify increasing the costs 10-40% every year for. I'm looking for something of the same quality, faster, more economical, and as good or better quality that can print on our windowed envelopes.

 

[damfino]

Lower consumable costs would be a plus, primarily when running heavy coverage jobs. I lose a lot of work because I (you) are forced to carefully calculate ink consumption and customers balk when an ink surcharge is tacked on. They don't understand why a job printed via offset or toner is not subject to variable ink costs. The new driver, however, does effectively 'drain' the tanks, which recovers about 10-15% of otherwise wasted ink. That's a nice bonus. When used for light coverage these printers have the lowest cost per impression available.

I don't think we can claim the heads to be over priced. They are complex and expensive to make. I'd rather pay more for the head and less for ink.

I own two mach-5's and one really positive thing I can say is that I've never had a service call on either. Built like tanks. My toner printer service calls are numerous and costly.

 

[printing656]

I would have to respectfully disagree with the head cost! The first head I bought for my machine was under $300. They have raised the price over 65% in 5 years. Have you been able to charge 65% more to your clients in 5 years? What makes it worse, due to the design of the machine, we typically only get to use half of the print head. If you have to run envelopes through the long way, you are limited to the back half of the print head and you cannot run envelopes through the front half of the head.

Our machine is fairly reliable, but finicky and has had numerous break downs. Other printshops and even vendors that sell them have confirmed these statements but perhaps you have newer machines that have had internal parts refined from the originals.

 

[damfino]

Our millage may vary...

I've never paid less than $425. per head but I get 350-400M impressions on average. So that's a little over $1. per M - a minor cost. When printing corner-card in portrait mode I would suggest you use the 180 degrees rotate setting half the time to utilize infrequently used head nozzles.

 

[prwhite]

Here's what the company is saying about the Mach 6

Neopost USA is unveiling a brand new MACH 6 at Graph Expo (Booth 900), and will be available for demo for the first time.

The Mach 6’s offers technology-enhanced performance allowing users to handle applications that were previously impossible with their first generation printer.

MACH 6 features:

• A six-inch, color, touch-screen interface that graphically displays the status of the printing system and provides access to common functions and settings,
• An open-throat, straight paper path that accommodates 10”x13” envelopes, stuffed envelopes, chip board, corrugated cardboard and flat cartons with its integrated heavy-duty feeder,
• Two print modes:
  • Normal runing at 60 ips and 1600x800 dpi, delivering fast production with economical ink usage,
  • Best printing at 30 ips and 1600x1600 dpi resulting in higher quality output and color depth.

http://www.neopostusa.com/digital-printers

 

[BilLongua]

Gentlemen,

I appreciate all the excitement and interest about the MACH 6. It's going to be a great product. While I understand the frustration expressed over our supplies, it's important to note our supplies pricing has been very stable. Our ink tanks have only increased about 10% in 5 years, and our printhead price was adjusted early on due to substantially increased manufacturing costs. Since then, it has increased about 10% as well. All in all, our commitment to our customers is to provide you all with great gear and reasonable supplies. The MACH 5 is a tremendous profit machine for its print for pay owners. Come see me at Graph Expo and I would be happy to discuss this with you. Thank you for being a customer!

~William Longua
Neopost USA

 

[printing656]

prwhite or BiLongua, what does "Normal runing at 60 ips and 1600x800 dpi, delivering fast production with economical ink usage" translate into finished number of #10 envelopes per hour to reliably compare it to the Mach 5? Is it 50% faster at the same quality?

 

[BilLongua]

Printing656,

The speeds are the same for the Mach 5 & 6. Normal print mode is our 1600x800 mode that prints at 60 Inches per second. When running #10s in landscape, with 'safe feed' turned off, this is about 7,500/hr max throughput speed. Cleaning frequency and material slippage can affect real world production speed.

~William J Longua

 

[Guest]

Printing656,

The speeds are the same for the Mach 5 & 6. Normal print mode is our 1600x800 mode that prints at 60 Inches per second. When running #10s in landscape, with 'safe feed' turned off, this is about 7,500/hr max throughput speed. Cleaning frequency and material slippage can affect real world production speed.

~William J Longua

With safe feed turned off? LOL.... Yeah, on my 2 - Mach 5s that is a FOR SURE PAPER JAM situation. Never in 4 years been able to make that work, so I could never see that as a realistic scenario. Not sure about the Mach 6, but the Mach 5 is working for me at about 2700 per hour when set on "best" quality option. This does NOT take into account head maintenance cycling while printing. The "normal" quality option in the print driver should be relabeled as "low" quality in my opinion. The "best" quality setting is a tough sell to higher end customers as the ink is very dull and flat in color as compared to toner. When you are on default maintenance cycle, I would realistically expect no more than 2500 per hour on the mach 5. Where I think these machines shine the brightest is variable addressing along with a simple logo/return corner card. AND... the cost per print is awesome... simply can't be beat. But, you get what you pay for.

Unfortunately for me, the mach 5 was way over promised and way under delivered, so I could never see me investing in a Mach 6 based on past experience. I really wish that along with the sales literature and fancy videos provided by these manufacturers, we as users could be privy to the log of "known and open" machine tech/support issues. It might just help us to make more informed decisions and force the manufacturers to work to solve the issues with their products.

 

[printing656]

BilL/Kringle,
Not to beat a dead horse....but I too have a list of complaints but the one I will mention at this time is the speed. It's rated for the 7,500 per hour running envelopes the short way, yet our Neopost vendor has told us for years the machine is not supported to actually run that way. They refuse to stand behind any issues when running #10s the short way. However, for the most part we can but we have to use 'safe mode' 90% of the time when printing this way, yet when there's an issue, we are on our own.

Are both side guides movable or are they setup the same as the Mach 5? One of our issues with head life is that we can only use 1/2 of the head when running envelopes. The head on the far side of the Operator gets used 90% of the time because 1) when running the long way, that's the only place the envelope can feed and 2) when running the short way, the envelope has windows and does not get any print. Running envelopes backwards, the short way, jams. So we again cannot do much printing with the near half of the head.

 

[printing656]

Taken from a press release. Bill, this seems contradictory:

“The Mach 6’s new technology-enhanced performance allows customers to handle applications that were previously impossible with our first generation digital color printer,” Longua says. “The MACH 6 will help commercial printers expand the affordable short-run color printing products that the market is shifting towards while simultaneously making those products more profitable by improving the production speed and exact digital proofing as well as reducing the cost-per-print.”
http://www.printingnews.com/product...&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GRVDB160902002

 

[BilLongua]

Hi guys/gals,

I just logged in today (I don't visit as often as I should) and saw these posts.

Give me a call to discuss - as I love customer and industry feedback, positive and negative, because this is how we make our products better.

- Bil Longua
484/690-0052

 

[BilLongua]

I also noticed a typo - it's 6 or 12 inches per second, which is up to 60 feet per minute, not 60 inches per second. Sorry if that was confusing.

~Bil Longua

 

[BilLongua]

Good chat today Larry. Here's the link to the video I promised: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx...jgwbFVvTTQ3aGs

You may need to download it first - the file is over 200 MB

~Bil Longua

 

[printing656]

Thanks for your time as well Bill, much appreciated. Hopefully some of the pain points mentioned here can be addressed with the new Mach 6!

 

[BilLongua]

We will do our best!

~ Bil

 

[JenniferReid]

]Mach 6 print speed: It depends on the length of the paper you're printing; I print letter size or larger. The speed it runs at with letter size is around 2,300 hr on normal speed