Postcard Printer - What to buy?

[forecollard]

We are a large volume mailer and looking to bring in a Digital Color machine to start printing VDP and smaller run postcards. Interested in equipment feedback from any mailers out there. I have looked at all the big players in the market, and am looking for feedback on print quality and price to run postcards. iGen, Indigo, NexPress...

 

[jlind]

Re: Postcard Printer - What to buy?

Christian:
Whatever digital press you get, postcards will need some sort of coating to protect them from the mail machines. They are all heat fused, toner or ink on paper. The machines at the post office generate a lot of heat from the belts, 30,000 envelopes or postcards per hour. This marks the postcards up pretty good if there isn't a sacrificial protective coating. Light coverage pieces aren't as big a problem as heavy coverage and dark pieces. Each supplier has solutions for this, just pointing it out. A lot depends on the quality expectations of your customer.

John Lind
Cranberry Township, PA
724-776-4718

 

[bphilippi]

Re: Postcard Printer - What to buy?

As A VIPP programmer myself, I will say first off that I am a bit biased towards the Xerox option.
I'm unsure how Xerox are when it comes to service in your part of the world but in Australia, I cannot fault them for their after sales service.
I know that the Igen comes with an inline varnishing unit that also does spot varnish (UV). I suppose it depends on what sort of volumes you are going to be putting out and the type of work you may be planning to do as well.

I haven't ran one of the HP machines but from a ROI point of view, we decided to go with the Xerox although the gamut from the indigo's 7col system sounds fantastic. That has to be the one shortfall with laser printing. Customers tend to expect SWOP when the process is anything but.

 

[pman]

Re: Postcard Printer - What to buy?

You might want to ask these people for their opinion new print solutions. They did a run of 5000 for me recently and the quality was superb.

Edited by: peter on Jul 11, 2008 12:18 PM

 

[oxburger]

Re: Postcard Printer - What to buy?

We use the iGen. You may want to also look into Pageflex as well. It's a really nice system utilizing dynamic page publishing. We use it in conjunction with our iGen and it's worked really well so far.

 

[forecollard]

Re: Postcard Printer - What to buy?

Do you UV coat postcards off the iGen?

 

[neildigital]

Re: Postcard Printer - What to buy?

Hi there

We have an Igen3, and a lot of our postcards are laminated. We are looking into UV coating, because it could be a cheaper way of glossing the postcards.

Neil

PS. We also use xralle and pageflex. - great stuff

 

[ian]

Re: Postcard Printer - What to buy?

All the current equipment out there have pitfalls, there is no single machine that can do it all, the key is to understand your clients needs first and then chose the right equipment for it. The xerox has one of the best service level we have ever dealt with, Indigo has issues with ink scratching off it not use a certified paper, nexpress I am still trying to get more info on.
I am also starting to find out to get consistent high quality, all equipment requires a lot of maintenance, no matter what the sales rep tells you.

Ian