New to Digital Printing - Looking at used printers

[gazfocus]

Hi all,

My wife and I have a design company and we have been using a print reseller account in order to get printing done for our customers. This has worked quite well and we've had some good comments from customers, however, the margins are fairly low due to the cost of buying in the printing, so we are have been producing small(ish) run items ourselves, which in turn gives us a faster turnaround for our customers.

We have, to date, been using a fairly old Konica Minolta C220 (which wasn't designed for this kind of printing), which now has around 290,000 impressions, and while it's been a good printer, it doesn't take SRA3 paper so we've been having to cut down the paper, giving us all kinds of headaches, so we are looking to upgrade.

We've spoken to Konica Minolta and received a quote for a Konica C1060, but at almost £500 per month including VAT, it's more than we can afford at the moment, so we've been looking at used machines, and could do with some advice.

One option is a Konica C6500e, which I know is quite an old machine, however, at a £2,000 price tag, it's tempting. Alternatively, we've been offered a Konica 364e for £1500 which is a much newer machine.

Are there any others I should be looking at, either on lease or buying outright?

In terms of usage, we print approximately 20,000 - 30,000 A5 flyers per month and around 5,000 business cards. We also print seasonal items like calendars when needed, which end up being runs of 3,500 x A4 pages a go.

Thanks all.

 

[wonderings]

I would shop around the manufactures. Xerox, Canon, Ricoh, etc. If this is new to you in regards to the print end of things, might be worth looking for something you can get a service contract with. I am assuming it works the same in the UK as it does in Canada in this regard. We bought our digital unit outright, but pay per click (colour and black) a certain amount. This gives us service, parts and toner. I know with our first Digital unit we bought used and had a service contract with Xerox, which was very helpful when fighting with issues.

 

[gazfocus]

I would shop around the manufactures. Xerox, Canon, Ricoh, etc. If this is new to you in regards to the print end of things, might be worth looking for something you can get a service contract with. I am assuming it works the same in the UK as it does in Canada in this regard. We bought our digital unit outright, but pay per click (colour and black) a certain amount. This gives us service, parts and toner. I know with our first Digital unit we bought used and had a service contract with Xerox, which was very helpful when fighting with issues.

Thanks for your input. The only reason I was looking at the Konica's is that they seem a lot better made than some others. I was an IT/Network engineer originally, and now more into the Graphic Design side of things, so getting my hands dirty with a printer doesn't phase me, but obviously makes more sense to get a service agreement rather than wasting time trying to fix something if it breaks. My only concern is unless we deal with the manufacturers, the click charges are quite high. As an example, we had a Konica C280 on lease and the click charge was 5p per A4 page. Konica quoted us 3.2p per SRA3 page on a C1060.

 

[wonderings]

You should be able to negotiate a bit on the click charges. Not sure how much wiggle room they will have for used machines. Any of the big brands should be good, and if you have a service contract and understand the terms in regards to how your machine should perform and what it should be capable of doing, you are protected as they have to stand behind it. We have been using Xerox for years and been very happy with them. We did have a serious problem with our last xerox (J75). There was some fighting with Xerox to get the problem solved, in the end we bought a new machine because they could not resolve the issue we were having, at a greatly reduced price.

 

[stonemask]

you should definetly check with the others as well and also see if you can find out how the service is in the area

 

[gazfocus]

Thanks for the replies.

I have spoken to a few companies since my last post and now have the following options based on our budget:

Konica Minolta C6500e - purchase outright, and purchase consumables ourselves (could help reducing costs).
Konica Minolta 364e - purchase outright, and purchase consumables ourselves (could help reducing costs).
Xerox C560 - purchase on a lease with a 5p/SRA3 click charge.

I also spoke to Ricoh but I think their machines are likely to be out of budget unfortunately.

Out of the 3 machines above, which should I be considering?

 

[stonemask]

what about used xerox c60?

 

[gazfocus]

what about used xerox c60?

It's out of our budget unfortunately.

 

[gazfocus]

I'm curious to hear from the people on here that pay for a service contract (on a click charge). Do you find that you're still able to make a decent profit from printing? We currently own our printer and buy toners and drums as needed, but we've been quoted a 5p/SRA3 click charge for the Xerox 560 meaning we'll be paying 1.25p per single sided A5 flyer or 2.5p per double sided A5 flyer, which seems quite a lot really.

 

[dabob]

We added digital in 2001 1st with an Indigo and now with a Xerox 770 and have had service contracts/click charges on both . . make pricing so much easier and maintenance/problem solving is something that we don't need to learn at this point . . . just give them a call and they come over, next day at the latest . . . that lets you concentrate on doing what you do best - design, and print . . .

 

[Craig]

In all reality you might just want to reconsider being a print producer. You need so much more than a machine that makes pretty colors. You will need a guillotine cutter and a folder just to produce the most basic jobs. If you don't have enough in the budget to get at least these basic pieces then farm out the printing. You will be farther ahead financially and mentally. Find a local print producer and partner with them.

 

[gazfocus]

In all reality you might just want to reconsider being a print producer. You need so much more than a machine that makes pretty colors. You will need a guillotine cutter and a folder just to produce the most basic jobs. If you don't have enough in the budget to get at least these basic pieces then farm out the printing. You will be farther ahead financially and mentally. Find a local print producer and partner with them.

Hi Craig, I appreciate your input. We actually already have an electric guillotine with digital paper guide (which we spent around £1000 on), and a paper folder that does a variety of folds. We also have a creasing device for laminated products that need creasing before they're folded.

We started out by farming out the printing, and are taking small steps to bringing some of the printing in house. To do that, we've started small with equipment we could afford, and are upgrading as we can afford to (our first guillotine was an old Chinese model with manual paper guide, and we've just upgraded to a much better machine). It's now time to upgrade our current printer, so just after peoples opinions on a good printer to move onto from what we already have

I also have to bear in mind that this is still a part time business for me and I still have a full time day job, but very soon I want to be able to do this full time.

 

[gazfocus]

Sorry to drag up this thread, but just wondered if there's anymore thought on the Xerox C560 vs a Konica Minolta 364e as we need to make a decision this week (the Konica Minolta C6500e is unfortunately out of the running as it will not fit through our office door without removing the door and frame).

 

[Craig]

I don't know that you would be happy with those when it comes time for cutting and folding. A key factor I have found is how well machines register the image on the sheet. This will be important when you have an order of business cards to trim and it has a graphic element 3mm from the trim and your machine bounces around 2mm from sheet to sheet. Nothing worse than watching the blade drop and cut through text in the middle of the pile! Same goes when trying to fold on color breaks.

I would test run them if you can, keeping an eye on how well they duplex a target on various sheet sizes and gsm weights.

 

[gazfocus]

I just thought I'd update the thread to say we decided to go with the Xerox C560 coupled with a light production finisher and decurler. We had the option of purchasing with or without the service agreement and decided to go with the service agreement at 5p per SRA3. Looking forward to getting it now

 

[Craig]

Good luck, welcome to the world of print.

 

[Printman352]

Xerox also has a heavyweight fuser that you can get for the 560 that will guarantee that all of your heavier gsm paper will lay perfectly flat. They also have a fuser for envelopes for running A-size envelopes that will feed and come out without wrinkling. Thsi wiil not work on a #10 business envelope as it pretty mush will destroy them. At least they have then in the USA as I have a 560 and have both fusers.

 

[dwhitten96021]

As a rep that sells several different OEM products, I have found that the Xerox Light Production systems are typically a safe bet when starting out. We have had a lot of clients get 560, 570, C70, even C75 and then within 24 months have grown their business beyond the capabilities and need to step up. We also have converted many of our production clients away from KM to Xerox. I think you will be happy with the 560, but also consider your future growth opportunities.

 

[gazfocus]

Thanks guys, I am definitely looking forward to receiving the machine and putting it through its paces, will definitely be much better than the Konica C220 we've been using.

Thanks Printman352 - I will look out for the heavyweight fuser - I had heard that it's possible to print upto 450gsm on these machines which would obviously need the heavyweight fuser, so definitely something to consider. At present, I'm not sure if we plan on doing envelopes but will keep that in mind also.

At present, the print side of business is a part time sideline but due to circumstances at work, this is now going to become my full time job, so I need to make sure it works, and need to make sure I have the best equipment I can afford. In terms of the light production finisher, it was a case of an extra £35 per month on the lease cost so would've been foolish to not get it really.

 

[scotrinaf]

Hi all,

My wife and I have a design company and we have been using a print reseller account in order to get printing done for our customers. This has worked quite well and we've had some good comments from customers, however, the margins are fairly low due to the cost of buying in the printing, so we are have been producing small(ish) run items ourselves, which in turn gives us a faster turnaround for our customers.

We have, to date, been using a fairly old Konica Minolta C220 (which wasn't designed for this kind of printing), which now has around 290,000 impressions, and while it's been a good printer, it doesn't take SRA3 paper so we've been having to cut down the paper, giving us all kinds of headaches, so we are looking to upgrade.

We've spoken to Konica Minolta and received a quote for a Konica C1060, but at almost £500 per month including VAT, it's more than we can afford at the moment, so we've been looking at used machines, and could do with some advice.

One option is a Konica C6500e, which I know is quite an old machine, however, at a £2,000 price tag, it's tempting. Alternatively, we've been offered a Konica 364e for £1500 which is a much newer machine.

Are there any others I should be looking at, either on lease or buying outright?

In terms of usage, we print approximately 20,000 - 30,000 A5 flyers per month and around 5,000 business cards. We also print seasonal items like calendars when needed, which end up being runs of 3,500 x A4 pages a go.

Thanks all.

I'll sell you a Richoh C900 for $3,500 with around 5mil impressions on it... You are responsible for securing a maintenance agreement on it as well as moving it... (It's dissassembled and ready for pickup)