Polyester plates printed on Laser printers

[kyprinter]

My HP 5000 is showing its age and a salesman has proposed a HP M806 to replace it as a laser platemaker.
Does anyone have any comments on this printer as a platemaker?
Thanks for the help.

 

[jpfulton248]

My HP 5000 is showing its age and a salesman has proposed a HP M806 to replace it as a laser platemaker.
Does anyone have any comments on this printer as a platemaker?
Thanks for the help.

I'm curious about a more educated answer to your questions... more specifically why the HP 5000 and 5100 are THE preferred printers for laser plates.

Here's what I know:
I think it's a variety of things but I know that when you use the right settings on the 5000 and tell it that it's printing on cardstock/heavy stock, it will greatly slow the printer down AND increase the fuser temperature allowing for better fusing on the plates which is key. I don't think most laser printers will do that, especially nowadays since everything is faster (and that's considered a good thing for most purposes).

All due respect to your salesperson but does he know anything about polyester plates? We have a laser printer repair guy that works out of his house who we use occasionally and EVERY time I call him to say we need something done on one of our 5000's he tells me it's not worth it and he can get me a great deal on a 5200 or even a [fill in the blank]. Even as a printer tech he doesn't get it.

My advice (I realize it's been a while since your post so this could be irrelevant). Would be to go to ebay and buy one. There are a lot of them being sold be guys who buy and refurb them. We bought one and got kind of unlucky as problems started emerging after only a few months of having it but still it's probably your best bet.

 

[kdw75]

Do any of these plates work with Xerox printers/digital presses?