Printing NCR and window enveloeps on digital equipment

[KeepSwimming]

Hello and thank you for sharing information!
We have had no luck finding offset pressmen in our area and I have had to farm out most of my NCR and window envelope jobs once my pressman became ill. Unfortunately, cancer beat him last month. Obviously a lower profit margin doing it this way. We try to run NCR on our Ricoh 4501 (not recommended by Ricoh of course) and we can only run a few at a time, then we run another copy job, then more NCR, etc. This is not efficient by any means.
I am looking into new equipment and wonder if any of you can recommend a good digital copier for NCR and window envelopes.

 

[Shawnd]

Ricoh says the 7200's are approved to run NCR. Some are able to get #10's to run though it with flaps open.

 

[rcreveli]

We ran all of our envelopes on our Ricoh 7110 before getting our Xante. We run NCR on our Ricoh 901 & 7110. We also run it on our KM 1050 which is a bit of a Dinosaur.

 

[Alith7]

I run thousands of sheets of carbonless at a time on my Ricoh 8220 with no problems at all. I know there is a digital carbonless that is supposed to have less powder, but it's a lot more expensive. The other thing would be to try a different brand of carbonless. We use Nekoosa Universal. Just make sure to check your padding compound before you switch brands. You usually need to have the matched brand compound or it won't glue.

as far as window envelopes, envelopes in general are interesting on copiers. Konica Minolta is supposed to have an envelope fuser that you swap out that works "better", but even with that, you can still have wrinkling problems. If your concern with window envelopes is that the window is melting in the copier, that is a different issue. To remedy that, you either have to get digital window envelopes that have a heat resistant window, or run them on an inkjet type digital printer that doesn't use heat. Like with the digital carbonless, the digital window envelopes are much more expensive.

 

[truehue]

We run plenty of NCR jobs through our Ricoh C901. For high quantity NCR and envelopes of any kind, we use a QM or SM-52 for those. Good luck in your search!

 

[easiprint]

We run loads of NCR's through our Ricoh C5100 and C5200 with very few problems. They are supposed to be good with envelopes too, but only with good quality ones.

 

[jwheeler]

We run cases of NCR every day. We used to have Ricoh's and they were very problematic for NCR, so we purchased 2 digital duplicators. They are very inexpensive and as easy to operate as a copier, and lower cost per print for long runs. They are about 5-6 years old now and starting to have issues and been down for a while, so we started running NCR on our Konica Minolta 6136's. So far we have ran probably 20 cases or more and not had any problems. I think the vacuum feed drawers help. We also run envelopes on our 6136 without the envelope fuser. We have run regulars, digital windows, and standard windows, no problems with any of them. You just have to turn off double sheet detection and lie to the machine about their size in order for them to feed. We also have an Oki for printing envelopes, but the KM is so much faster and basically no jams, so we have been using that more and more.

 

[KeepSwimming]

Alrighty then... I think we'll try running it through the Ricoh 7100 and see what happens
Thank you all so much - I'm sure I'll be back for your expertise in other areas soon enough since I've never had to do the equipment ordering before.
Have a great day y'all!

 

[Alith7]

That's what we're here for!
for your own sake, make sure to confirm that every job is set for grayscale and not color. The copier doesn't always register it correctly and you could end up with a MUCH bigger bill than expected.

 

[KeepSwimming]

That's what we're here for!
for your own sake, make sure to confirm that every job is set for grayscale and not color. The copier doesn't always register it correctly and you could end up with a MUCH bigger bill than expected.

Yup, but sometimes they want that color. We ran some and it came out better on the 7100 than the 4501, which we have been using - but hey told us we couldn't do it on the 7100. Well, whatever. Learn and move on. Right?!

 

[Alith7]

Not sure why they'd tell you you can't run carbonless....
but if you have the high-cap drawers, I would pull out of those instead of the smaller trays. They are vacuum pick-up and don't rely on rollers to push the sheet into the machine.
On the machine that's having the problems, that's really all it is. The pick-up rollers for the drawer and in the paper path get glossed with the powder from the carbonless and are no longer "sticky". I would talk to your tech for what you can use to clean off the rollers. they all have different opinions, but usually alcohol and a lint-free paper towel (we use Kimtech wipes) works. although I have also had some techs that don't want you to use alcohol.

 

[kdw75]

Our Ricoh 7200s run lots of #10s without opening the flaps. The only issue is that you have to buy laser safe window envelopes. Our Versant 2100 runs cooler and did better with standard window envelopes, but still causes some distortion of the window.

The Ricoh 7200s run carbonless perfectly without any issues. It runs them just as well as 20# bond.

 

[KeepSwimming]

Thank you all again for your assistance!