New Xanté Ilumina

[Fiz]

Hello, friends, long time no see. Thanks in advance for anyone reading and giving input on this.

We are looking at a Xanté Ilumina for heavy stock digital printing. My question is if anybody has one and if so, how well does it work?
Our goal is to print on a minimum of 16pt paper, full color, single sided, 13x19, for a medium production workload.

Looking for reliability in:

1) Color consistency from day to day and for beginning and end of a run.
2) Registration. It's fairly important that there is very little shift from copy to copy. Again, single sided.
3) Printing on pre perforated and/or pre scored paper.

That's it really. Any input would be awesome!

Thanks!

 

[arossetti]

DON'T DO IT!

A.) Xante Support is awful
B.) Registration is horrid, not just image to sheet but also color to color.
C.) 16pt will tear up your drums, this is gen 1 xerographics so paper comes into contact with the drum. Not that big of an issue if you print 20# bond but if you plan on sending 16pt through your drums will die fast.
D.) Xante is an awful company with horrible support.

 

[MailGuru]

We've never owned one, but, as far back as I can remember on this forum, I've not heard very many good things about Xante. 8 out of 10 comments have been on the negative side

 

[ID13]

We bought our Ilumina in 2009, so it's getting up there in age. We used to try to print small full color orders on it before we got our C75. Color consistency is probably the biggest complaint I've had with it.

The print quality goes as the drums wear down and the color gets worse as well. You can get iQueue Ultimate for spot color matching and some of Oki's versions of the printer have a fiery server, but I can't imagine it making much of a difference when the drums get below 75%. We are having troubles with color to color registration like arossetti mentioned, but don't remember it being as bad when we first got it as it is now.

Single sided registration is decent if I keep it 8.5x11 or smaller. I tried to get 13x19 to work sometimes but it would get skewed pretty bad on the tail end. I've never tried printing on anything over 12pt, but the thicker sheet we would print on the worse the quality would get. Glossy paper was also a pain. The Heavyweight Champion is a newer model, it could be better at that than ours.

What we use it for now is mostly the smaller stuff like envelopes and stamped postcards. It's a decent printer for that but it still is very frustrating to color correct.

 

[Guest]

We owned 2 Xante's and couldn't wait to get rid of them. I second arossetti, horrible customer service and support and crazy high consumable costs. The consumables seemed to have an excessively short life too. We weren't very impressed with the print quality either.

 

[Fiz]

Wow, great feedback everybody! I greatly appreciate it. I had a feeling from some previous comments that this might be a less than desirable machine. Thank you all for confirming! Have a great rest of your week!

Edit: So for a smaller budget, say around $15k, is there a comparable machine that might work better?

 

[arossetti]

I would check with your local KM/Ricoh/Xerox/Canon dealers and see if they have anything used that they would guarantee a service timeframe of a few years on. They usually have access to used equipment for dirt cheap.

 

[PrintIT]

I would check with your local KM/Ricoh/Xerox/Canon dealers and see if they have anything used that they would guarantee a service timeframe of a few years on. They usually have access to used equipment for dirt cheap.

He's looking for something that runs a "minimum of 16pt" though - I can't think of anything in that budget range that can run those weights, and also fall into the "consistent and reliable" category.

We have an Oki c931e that we mainly use for small envelope runs. It can supposedly run heavy stock, but we've run a couple jobs with heavy coverage on it, and they looked AWFUL. It's ok for envelopes when your only dropping a logo and and address on it, but it can't hold solid color at all.

 

[agmfan3]

I have the original Ilumina, sits in the corner, I didn't have lots of issues with it, but didn't run tons of stuff thru it, only what Xante said. Now, I have an Impressia, no troubles with it. and I don't have any issues with support, maybe it's cause I always talk to my sales person first, we get along great, and he has been able to solve all but 1 of the problems I had (nothing major at all) and even then Tech Support got back to me within a day.
Now, what I can say is that it doesn't do everything it is hyped up to do. No, it will not print full bleeds. It is VERY picky on the envelopes that go thru it. And I mean picky! 20 year old A-2's run like a charm, new WS #10's make me scream, cuss and throw stuff, but Athenian #10's run like a charm.
Bottom line is it works for me, but I'm not printing Life magazine, mostly small runs, NCR, tickets, full color and one color stuff.

 

[arossetti]

He's looking for something that runs a "minimum of 16pt" though - I can't think of anything in that budget range that can run those weights, and also fall into the "consistent and reliable" category.

We have an Oki c931e that we mainly use for small envelope runs. It can supposedly run heavy stock, but we've run a couple jobs with heavy coverage on it, and they looked AWFUL. It's ok for envelopes when your only dropping a logo and and address on it, but it can't hold solid color at all.

Ah I was thinking max 16pt.... yeah thats a tough one.

 

[MailGuru]

Ah I was thinking max 16pt.... yeah thats a tough one.

16-pt is approximately 350 gsm -- the top end of most digital production presses. The only digital printer, that I'm aware of, that "might" run stocks above 16-pt would be the MGi Meteor series, but, that's just a tad more than your $15k budget (I think they're around $500k)

 

[arossetti]

16-pt is approximately 350 gsm -- the top end of most digital production presses. The only digital printer, that I'm aware of, that "might" run stocks above 16-pt would be the MGi Meteor series, but, that's just a tad more than your $15k budget (I think they're around $500k)

You can run 16pt through a Xerox 700 all day long; not rated for it but it will print.

 

[gregbatch]

The current Illumina is based on the Oki 931 engine. It uses a transfer belt so no drum contact. Output quality and color to color registration is excellent. Solid coverage is lacking. Sheet registration is fair because of the Xante feeder. 500 gsm. You can run pocket folders on it. Consumables are the problem. $400 for 15000 letter impressions at 5% coverage in toner alone. Factor in drums, transfer belt, fuser life and things add up quickly. An Oki 931 is about $6000 and does 360 gsm out of the box. Same factors. The current impressia is a RICOH engine. Very nice envelope printer. High consumables cost as well so envelopes are it's niche.

 

[Fiz]

Sorry, I sort of fell off the earth. I'm very grateful to all the responses and giving me direction. I will continue research with all this in mind.

Cheers!