Printing Envelopes on Xerox 700 or any digital press

[sidneykidney]

Does anyone have experience of printing Digital Envelopes on a Xerox 700 or any other heat based digital press.
I've got some samples from my paper supplier and it sounds like a good way of keeping the print in-house and would be much cheaper rather than out sourcing as litho print.

Is there anything I should look out for?
I understand that I can only use tray 5 on the Xerox 700 for DL envelopes because of the size.

 

[johntheventer]

be careful - experiment and try many different envelopes that work nice before you offer as a service. Use lick and stick envelopes, not peel and stick. Print face up with flap open, and the flap trailing, the customer size would be whatever size rectangle fits around the envelope shape with flap open - set artwork up accordingly. normally works just fine except - on more thinner common envelopes you get the "embossed" effect of the glued areas of the envelopes because of the heat - i sometimes slide a piece of paper into the envelope extending from inside the pocket to the tip of the open flap - helps a bit - and you run the risk of the envelope creasing since it is basically two sheets of paper that is squeezed between to hot roller - and because it is joined at one end - the paper has no "give" or "play" to even itself out - so it just creases.

Im creating a print jig to do this on my Mimaki printer - two pieces of board with windows cut out where envelopes go - template setup between the punch rollers - slide the envelopes in - fold over the windowed cover insert as sheet, print, and hey presto!! Perfectly printed envelopes.

 

[jotterpinky]

second johntheventer, we run thousands on our Xerox 700 machines. All flaps need to be open, we have never had a problem with wrinkling if you run as described above. We've never gone to the lengths of placing a card in the envelope to avoid the embossing effect although it does happen but has never been an issue with our customers, they like the quick turn and quality print. For window envelopes you need to purchase the "laser-safe" option which are more money but standard windows will shrink in the heat and curl the envelope. I've only run these through the bypass of the machine as a 5.8x9.5" size (LEF) and make sure you have "face-up" set or they'll jam in the inverter every time. Your envelope needs to be really close to those dimensions since that's the minimum length (5.8") the machine will run. Shorter flaps will not work, nor will #9's and smaller. Generally we only run #10's this way. For 9x12's we leave the flap closed and run LEF but do get creasing on these. We have had problems with skewing, our only solution to this has been to put less in the tray and it seems to help quite a bit. I usually max out at about 25 envelopes per lift in the tray but if I'm having skewing problems I usually cut that back to 10. It takes longer and requires the operator to stand right by the machine, opening flaps and loading but for 500 full color envelopes it's much faster than moving it to a press and we can use our current equipment rather than purchase a dedicated envelope printer. Make sure to use a junk fuser since the additional paper thickness really leaves a gloss differential line on the edge of where the envelope travels. Good luck.

 

[sidneykidney]

Thanks for the info...very useful on both accounts. I've just spoken to your paper supplier (here in the UK) and have been told that Xerox have discontinued the digital envelope range. I'll now have to source a supplier of digital envelopes and understand what you have said about the window envelopes crinkling and distorting the envelope. I was also told to ONLY USE Peel and Seal envelopes and not ready-gummed.

 

[kdw75]

We have run thousands of envelopes on our C75. It isn't perfect, but it gets by. We only run full color envelopes on it, as one, and two color envelopes, are just easier to run on our dedicated envelope press.

Most #10s run very well, as long as you open the flaps, but certain kinds seem to have quite a few crooked ones, that have to be picked out. Don't have any creasing issues.

 

[jotterpinky]

I've never printed peel n seal, instead using the standard gummed envelopes that you lick.

 

[giant1958]

try this

try this

Look into a ColorMax ink jet with an envelope feeder.....works great...its inkjet...but does a good job

 

[jricart]

Hey kdw75 or anyone else here: can you guys tell me the gsm settings you are using to setup the xerox to run them? Do they need to be square flap or can you run the standard triangular shape flaps?

Thx in advance.

 

[Possumgal]

You'll have to play with the gsm settings. Start with the lighter ones, such as 91-105. Square flaps would be ideal, as even on a so-called envelope printer, you have problems printing over the part where the flap comes down on the back and the paper goes from three layers to two.

 

[xcelprint]

second johntheventer, we run thousands on our Xerox 700 machines. All flaps need to be open, we have never had a problem with wrinkling if you run as described above. We've never gone to the lengths of placing a card in the envelope to avoid the embossing effect although it does happen but has never been an issue with our customers, they like the quick turn and quality print. For window envelopes you need to purchase the "laser-safe" option which are more money but standard windows will shrink in the heat and curl the envelope. I've only run these through the bypass of the machine as a 5.8x9.5" size (LEF) and make sure you have "face-up" set or they'll jam in the inverter every time. Your envelope needs to be really close to those dimensions since that's the minimum length (5.8") the machine will run. Shorter flaps will not work, nor will #9's and smaller. Generally we only run #10's this way. For 9x12's we leave the flap closed and run LEF but do get creasing on these. We have had problems with skewing, our only solution to this has been to put less in the tray and it seems to help quite a bit. I usually max out at about 25 envelopes per lift in the tray but if I'm having skewing problems I usually cut that back to 10. It takes longer and requires the operator to stand right by the machine, opening flaps and loading but for 500 full color envelopes it's much faster than moving it to a press and we can use our current equipment rather than purchase a dedicated envelope printer. Make sure to use a junk fuser since the additional paper thickness really leaves a gloss differential line on the edge of where the envelope travels. Good luck.

We have followed the instructions above to the letter... and the envelope stops just before entering the fuser everytime. The image looks nice but of course it is not fused. We have purchased 10-24 envelopes with the square flaps extended. The size is 6.125x9.5. We tried some plain stock (100# cover) cut to 6.125x9.5 and feeding like the envelopes (9.5 edge leading). We get the same issue of stoping just before the fuser. Not sure what to do next? Any ideas?

Thanks