OKI 9431 alternatives more suited for our business

[Frankicks]

Hi,

We run a small stationery business and print on sticker paper at home using our HP Smarttank printer.
We have outgrown this printer, it is very slow, pixelated, and very limiting in terms of paper gsm and size.

For the last few months, I've been researching printers that fit our current and future business and came out to the Oki 9431 (CMYK)
The versatility of the machine seems great, however, the (color) quality of the prints is disappointing while testing in the showroom. Colors are very important for us since we create art.
Besides the quality, I just have a feeling that it's an overkill for us. There must be better alternatives for us.

Some more information:
- Budget: $10000
- Paper size: up to a3
- Use case: matte sticker paper (95gsm), clear vinyl, cardstock (300gsm)
- Speed: must be reasonably fast, not slow like a Canon photo printer
- Quality: very high-quality printing
- Printing amount: around 1000-2000 pages a month

To get a better understanding of what we create, take a look at our website: www.lettoonstore.com

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[SoggyWinter]

Congratulations on the business growth! The OKI printer consumables and parts are expensive, so you have two arguments for going a different direction. Do you see scaling up to 100,000 sheet per month within a few years? If so, it might be worth financing something like a Ricoh C7500.

You're at an awkward print volume where consumer printers are too small, but commercial grade equipment is waaay overkill. I'd outsource the printing and focus on growing sales.

 

[SoggyWinter]

A pair of Epson P5000 inkjet printers or an Epson T-series CAD printer might be an option if the math works on ink cost, the color looks good, and the supported media works for you. The P-series would offer a wider color gamut, but with more expensive ink utilization. A 24" T-series roll to roll with auto-cut might be able to produce the sheets that you need cutting from a roll. Both Epson printers mentioned above are single side only.

 

[gazfocus]

Personally, I don't like the way the Oki printers print colour. If you print a solid yellow for example, it prints a sort of hatched pattern rather than a solid yellow. For me, this puts it at a severe disadvantage regardless of the cost of toner/drums, etc.

The issue you're going to have is even something like the Konica Bizhub MFP's aren't good enough for production printing really. I don't know if we've always just had poor luck with the refurbs we've bought but the quality of colour prints has never been great and the colour consistency is just not there. For general office use though, they're great.

Most inkjet printers are going to be slow and even a relatively 'fast' inkjet like the Epson T series will be really slow compared to the speeds of the Oki or similar. We had to print a business card job on our Epson T series printer when our Xerox Versant went down. It took around 4 minutes to print a single SRA3 sheet one side and we had to do around 100 sheets double sided...was a painful process.

The other problem you're going to come across is that if you're doing this from home, a commercial printer (such as a Xerox Versant) would likely require an electrical upgrade in your house.

I think for where you're at, I would be looking at something like the Xerox Primelink printers which run on standard power cords. I would get it on a service contract where you pay x per print which will help you with working out your pricing etc. The Primelink replaced the Xerox C60/C70 so you could also have a look to see if you can find a refurbished C60/C70 from a dealer that will give you a service contract on it. In the UK, the C60's are only about £3k.

As a first port of call for the above, I'd look on eBay to see if there are any dealers in your country that mention service/maintenance contracts in the listings.

 

[jwheeler]

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

We have an OKI and I'd suggest you avoid it for the reasons already listed. It's not overkill, it's just not a good machine.

Since you're growing, and quality is really important, you might consider moving up to a light production model. Each of the 4 major vendors (Xerox, Ricoh, Canon, and Konica Minolta) have units to consider. The lowest cost is probably going to be the PrimeLink series or the EC70 from Xerox, then next priced up from there would be Konica's AccurioPrint C4065. Ricoh's light production unit would be the C5300 series. I know it will take a bit of work, but it's worth going to the showrooms for each of these manufacturers to demo the machines. Bring your own files and your own material to test. If you're lucky, you might have a multi-line dealer in your area that sells two or 3 brands in one place.

All of those machines might look a little intimidating, but that's because they're showing them with optional accessories. You can get them configured with just a bypass tray and catch tray, so it's just the main engine. The Xerox units have the option to add white in case you want to start printing on clear materials, or colored cardstock.

Lastly, consider financing or leasing the machine instead of buying outright with cash. This allows you to keep some capital for other equipment you might want as you grow, and a lease allows the opportunity to upgrade after the contract term.

Additionally, you'll want to consider a maintenance contract. Since you're growing, estimate a higher monthly volume (say 5,000 prints per month) to get a more competitive rate. This is the arrangement that ~95% of us print shops use on here. The manufacturer charges you a cost per copy (~$0.05 USD per page). For this fee, they will provide all of the toner, parts, and they will also do all of your repairs. As your volume increases, you'll see that parts need to be replaced more often. Since quality is so important, you want to keep the machine tuned up. The fixed cost per page allows you to calculate your profits easier too. By buying your own ink and parts, your costs will fluctuate.

 

[Frankicks]

Hi all,

Thanks for your great suggestions and for taking the time to respond to our question.

Outsourcing is not an option for us since we focus on handmade and all of our products are made by ourselves which separates us from other sellers.

We are currently looking at the Konica AccurioPrint C4065. I've contacted the sales rep here in The Netherlands and the price of the printer is ~18.000 euros, which is above our budget.
However, he has a few used printers used in a factory for a year. He can sell me one of these for ~10.000 euros or lease it for 190 euros/72 months. Does that sound reasonable?

He also stated that they charge ~120 euros a month for maintenance and 75 euros for service which includes 2000 monthly prints. Combining these costs would come down to ~10 cents per print. Service costs seem reasonable, but the maintenance costs seem very high. With 2000 pages a month, we might not need the maintenance?

I have a question regarding the print technology. When I look at a normal book in the bookstore, it is very obvious that the cover is made with a laser printer. However, the inside of the book is printed differently. , Is it possible to minimize the 'glow/glare' from the laser printer? For some b/w pages in our books, we would like to have a minimal effect.

 

[jwheeler]

We are currently looking at the Konica AccurioPrint C4065. I've contacted the sales rep here in The Netherlands and the price of the printer is ~18.000 euros, which is above our budget.
However, he has a few used printers used in a factory for a year. He can sell me one of these for ~10.000 euros or lease it for 190 euros/72 months. Does that sound reasonable?

Depending on how it's configured, that could be reasonable. If it has a high capacity paper deck, a Fiery Controller, and maybe some finishing, that's a reasonable price. If it's just the engine with an input and output tray, that seems a bit much for a used unit.

He also stated that they charge ~120 euros a month for maintenance and 75 euros for service which includes 2000 monthly prints. Combining these costs would come down to ~10 cents per print. Service costs seem reasonable, but the maintenance costs seem very high.

Since your volume is quite low, ~10 cents seems reasonable. The question is, can you make a profit with this combination of the lease plus service/maintenance? In total, you're looking at 385 euros/month which actually comes to ~19 cents per print (plus the cost of paper). Look at your sell price per sheet and see if you'll make money.

With 2000 pages a month, we might not need the maintenance?

Every machine, at some point, needs maintenance, parts replaced, and of course new toner and waste bottles. You might get by for several months without any issues, but then all of sudden you'll need to replace a roller in the fuser, a cleaning blade, a belt, etc. The parts and labor combined could be several hundred to well over $1,000 depending on what it is. If you're a really handy person, you may be able to do some of the things yourself, but these higher end machines get much more complex than just swapping out a drum like you do on a desktop laser printer. You will also find yourself sacrificing quality because you'll start putting off replacing parts or doing maintenance in order to save costs. However, if the consistent numbers of your lease and maintenance costs combined allows you to be profitable, it will allow you to keep your press running its best and you won't get hit with unexpected steep repairs.

When I look at a normal book in the bookstore, it is very obvious that the cover is made with a laser printer. However, the inside of the book is printed differently. , Is it possible to minimize the 'glow/glare' from the laser printer? For some b/w pages in our books, we would like to have a minimal effect.

Don't assume the book covers are printed on a laser printer. Books sold at major bookstores are typically printed in higher volume than would be doable on a digital press, so they are usually printed on an offset press. The cover might be a coated media, have a laminate, or some other type of aqueous/UV coating applied that is making you think it was printed on a 'laser printer' but it's most likely not. The inside pages are printed on an uncoated stock, also on an offset press resulting in the effect you're seeing. Some digital presses have settings where you can make the toner appear less glossy, and others (such as some production monochrome printers in the Canon line) use a pressure method instead of a heat method to apply the toner, resulting a in a flatter appearance that looks more like an offset press.

Using a full color digital press to print black & white pages always results in very 'shiny' black lettering due to the makeup of the toner. If you're doing a high volume of b&w only printing, then you'd want to consider getting a monochrome digital press.

 

[gazfocus]

My opinion differs somewhat to @jwheeler. Personally, I think 10 cents per print is too much, plus the way the dealer is pricing it means that if you have a month where you don’t print (say you go on a long vacation), you still pay that fixed cost.

We are in the UK so prices likely differ but we bought our Xerox Versant outright (a refurbished machine) and we pay a ‘minimum’ £50 per month for the maintenance. We pay 3.4 pence per colour print and 0.9 pence per mono print but the first £50 worth of prints are included in that minimum monthly charge. I’d definitely shop around to see if there are any dealers with better rates.

I would 100% echo what @jwheeler says about maintenance though. We’ve gone through so many parts on our Xerox Versant that I’d have hated to pay for. One example is the belt on the fuser shredder. We had a new belt fitted, and that shredded two weeks later. Those belt kits are nearly £600 each. We’ve also been through 3 2nd btr’s which cost around £400-500 each, so the costs quickly add up. It’s also much, much easier to work your costs out if you are on a maintenance contract.

With regards to the Konica machines, be sure to check with the dealer what power you need in your home. We bought our Konica C3070 brand new direct from Konica, had it delivered and the engineer came out to install and we had never been told we needed a 32amp socket so had to wait for an electrician to come install that before we could have the printer installed.

In my business I have had two Xerox presses and a Konica. I will say that I much preferred the Konica for build quality, service, and just general reliability, but there are things on the Xerox Versant that we have now that I wouldn’t like to be without now (SIQA, and square fold booklet maker).

 

[TJPrinter]

More in line with the OKI but a much better price and operating cost could be a Kyocera P8060cdn. The Kyocera printers have extremely long-life drums and they guarantee them for 3 years or 600,000 pages. If you’re running a lot of black, the Kyocera also has a very low cost per print on black and a great cost on the color too. You may want to get print samples to see if this meets your needs for the print quality that you’re looking for. If it does meet your needs, these printers don’t need expensive service contracts and could hold you over until you increase your volume to make a light production engine like the Konica make more sense.

Look at the total cost of ownership for any piece of equipment like this. The Konica is going to be very high considering the low volume that you intend to run. I normally put all the costs in a spreadsheet and enter different volumes to see what the actual cost per copy will be. You don’t have a lot of negotiating to do with the low volume that you have but I always tell any vendors that a minimum monthly service fee is unacceptable. Paying for a lease during something like COVID is challenging enough, add the cost of the minimum monthly service fee and you’d be throwing even more money away.

Remember the equipment rep will always stretch the truth to benefit a sale. You’re the only one looking out for your financial success.

 

[gazfocus]

More in line with the OKI but a much better price and operating cost could be a Kyocera P8060cdn. The Kyocera printers have extremely long-life drums and they guarantee them for 3 years or 600,000 pages. If you’re running a lot of black, the Kyocera also has a very low cost per print on black and a great cost on the color too. You may want to get print samples to see if this meets your needs for the print quality that you’re looking for. If it does meet your needs, these printers don’t need expensive service contracts and could hold you over until you increase your volume to make a light production engine like the Konica make more sense.

Look at the total cost of ownership for any piece of equipment like this. The Konica is going to be very high considering the low volume that you intend to run. I normally put all the costs in a spreadsheet and enter different volumes to see what the actual cost per copy will be. You don’t have a lot of negotiating to do with the low volume that you have but I always tell any vendors that a minimum monthly service fee is unacceptable. Paying for a lease during something like COVID is challenging enough, add the cost of the minimum monthly service fee and you’d be throwing even more money away.

Remember the equipment rep will always stretch the truth to benefit a sale. You’re the only one looking out for your financial success.

That Kyocera looks like an interesting option. It's a shame it can't be coupled with a fiery like the Oki's can, but still a worthwhile consideration.

My only worry about the OP not going on a service contract is that a 20,000 page toner cartridge can easily become a 5,000 page toner cartridge if customers supply heavy coverage print files, making each sheet 4+ times the cost to print.

 

[Frankicks]

Thanks again for the recommendations and comments. We have made an appointment for upcoming Tuesday at Konica to test the printer.

@jwheeler I've talked to the dealer, and they told me that the price is for a3, making the 19 cents per print make more sense.
Regarding the b&w printing, we would like to create a coloring book, so the amount of 'shine' should be minimal. At the same time, we want to print lots of colors and art to create various items; calendars, stickers, cards, envelopes, etc. Our budget only allows for one machine and we might have to sacrifice certain items like the coloring book and b&w printing if the effect is too shiny. We would love to find a great option in the middle, but there doesn't seem to be one.

@gazfocus The dealer allows us to take the remaining prints with us to the next month, so that helps. The actual fee is 6 cents per page, but we have a 75 euro extra monthly fee because our printing quantity is too low. The 6 cents (in our case 10 cents) does include all the maintenance, so that is great.

Great tip on the power. We are looking at office space and this is a good question to ask.

@TJPrinter Thanks for the tip. The machine looks good and is also reasonably priced at ~3500 euros. I've contacted them and hopefully will be able to test the machine.

 

[p_gam]

Hi.

Just giving my 2 cents on this.

I was quoted a C4065 with LU-202XLm + stacker tray for 3.000 sheets and accuriopro flux essential for about 23K + VAT 11 months ago.
There was fixed 76€ cost per month with 2000 color clicks included. The remaning was less than 4cts per click.

If you contact konica directly you might get into better prices/deals.

Also, do the same for the other vendors: xerox, fuji, canon, ricoh.

Do your research before reach them as they might try to sell you an office/entry level machine. Find what models you think will fit into your bussiness.

Another thing. If you are not in a hurry, consider getting a used one. The models before the current ones, if they still in contract or reconditioned, are still very good machines.

New machines have lower cost/print. Used ones heve higher click rates.

Btw, we ended with an versant 180 with dual high capacity drawers + booklet finisher and fiery EX180. No complains

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

Hi.

Just giving my 2 cents on this.

I was quoted a C4065 with LU-202XLm + stacker tray for 3.000 sheets and accuriopro flux essential for about 23K + VAT 11 months ago.
There was fixed 76€ cost per month with 2000 color clicks included. The remaning was less than 4cts per click.

If you contact konica directly you might get into better prices/deals.

Also, do the same for the other vendors: xerox, fuji, canon, ricoh.

Do your research before reach them as they might try to sell you an office/entry level machine. Find what models you think will fit into your bussiness.

Another thing. If you are not in a hurry, consider getting a used one. The models before the current ones, if they still in contract or reconditioned, are still very good machines.

New machines have lower cost/print. Used ones heve higher click rates.

Btw, we ended with an versant 180 with dual high capacity drawers + booklet finisher and fiery EX180. No complains

Low mileage 180 and 280's are probably going for a really good deal right now. I'd honestly be apprehensive of getting into bed with a 180 at this point of its life-cycle (due to be end-of-lifed in 2026), but a stripped down 280 could be a great way to go.

 

[gazfocus]

Low mileage 180 and 280's are probably going for a really good deal right now. I'd honestly be apprehensive of getting into bed with a 180 at this point of its life-cycle (due to be end-of-lifed in 2026), but a stripped down 280 could be a great way to go.

If you find a 180 with a dealer that will put it on a service contract, makes no odds whether it's end of life in 2026 really. We have a Versant 80 that is going to be EOL'd at the end of this year, but our service contract runs until end of next year with the option of renewing it. We'll likely have replaced it with something else by the end of our contract though.

 

[narseman]

Is it possible to minimize the 'glow/glare' from the laser printer? For some b/w pages in our books, we would like to have a minimal effect.

Toner printing, is melted plastic, "fused" to paper. Thus the gloss look on larger patches of black print. I run an OCE BW 6180 which uses heat, but does not fuse the toner. Instead it traps the toner in the paper fibers. No gloss sheen. However, there is a drawback. Larger patches of black can be negatively marked by any friction. Fingernail, accidental drag of an object, etc. Just a bit of info.

 

[Ynot_UK]

The other problem you're going to come across is that if you're doing this from home, a commercial printer (such as a Xerox Versant) would likely require an electrical upgrade in your house.

Confirm with your home insurer before doing this. In the UK, domestic plugs and sockets come under BS1363, whereas industrial/commercial plugs come under a separate standard, BS4343. This is the sort of technical point that most definitely wouldn't be ignored by a loss adjuster in the event of an electrical fire claim. Electrical regs and standards may be different in Netherlands, however the principle is likely to be similar.

 

[Frankicks]

Great advice again, thank you all!

Today we visited Konica Minolta to take a look at the C4065. The quality of the prints is stunning and the machine looks very well built.
Out of the box, with no color adjustments, everything we printed looked great. Compared to the OKI 9431 we tested last week the difference is night and day.

They have a few second-hand machines (1-year-old with ~50k clicks) available for 10k euros.
The 2000 clicks a month is not going to work for this machine since we would have to pay an extra 75 euro low quantity fee on top of the 120 euro for 2000 clicks (2000 * 0,06)
The sales rep seemed very understanding about this issue and he would try to help us out. Later today he called us and told us it would be possible to remove the 75 euro fee
if we would take 5000 clicks a month. He also said that the 5000 clicks would carry over to the next month if we didn't use them, indefinitely. Meaning we could use them 24 months later for example.

With the monthly machine fee (200 euros a month for 72 month's lease), and the 5000 clicks (300 euros) we would come down to 0.10 cents per click which seems reasonable.

My only concern is that we might not make the 5000 clicks, especially at the start. Would like to hear what you think about this construction.

 

[jwheeler]

So if you only end up doing 2,000 clicks per month, you're still paying €300 which is actually 0.15 per page. While that is higher than any of us are paying (most of us are paying 0.03-0.05 per A3 print) we are doing significantly higher volume (I'd assume most on this forum are doing 10,000 - 100,000+ per month on their color digital presses) so they are willing to give us lower rates.

Back to my earlier comment: can you make money at this rate? Don't look at it as if you're paying more per page than someone else. The quality, speed, and capabilities meet your need. Does the cost allow you to still make a profit and have peace of mind that you'll have a good running machine for €300/month? Also, if you can print on A3, that makes your prints cost 0.075 or less per page instead. Furthermore, it will incentivize you to keep marketing your business to get enough work to max out that 5,000 prints per month and even start exceeding it.

Lastly, as many of us have encouraged you, do yourself a favor and go visit Ricoh and Xerox. Their quality will be on par with Konica's if you look at the same class of equipment (I listed the models earlier). This will allow you to get some competitive quotes. Then you go back to the vendor you really want and do a little negotiating to get their rates a bit lower.

 

[Frankicks]

Yes, if we end up printing less, we will have to pay more. The net difference is only 1750 clicks because the 75 euro service cost was a low quantity fee and worth 1250 clicks (75 * 0,06)
In the end, the difference between 2000 and 5000 clicks is ~100 euros, which seems worth it.

We have calculated different products and we would be able to make a decent profit. Our art products have a relatively high margin of 60-80% which makes this a worthwhile investment.
An obvious risk is that we will not manage to sell enough and thus not able to make the 5000 clicks. As you said, it is also a great motivator to keep growing the business and to invest in marketing.

I've been in contact with both of them. Ricoh seems like a great company, but the unit you recommended is out of our budget (so is the Konica Minolta, but the second-hand model is not)
From what I've read online so far, Xerox Netherlands is not great. Their support is lacking and the division is small. It doesn't seem to be a viable option for us to consider.

 

[jwheeler]

but the unit you recommended is out of our budget (so is the Konica Minolta, but the second-hand model is not)

Ricoh may also have second-hand units. I'd also check with dealers. Those are 3rd party companies who sell various brands of machines (new and used). They are usually quite competitive and can offer equally good, if not better service than the direct manufacturer.