Rampage v13 to XMF or Prinergy.

[csawatzki]

Prinergy is of course more robust than XMF, it has been around forever. There is not much that XMF can do better than Kodak, so I would have to leave it up to function and price. I know that Kodak makes a good Chem free plate called the SONORA XP. Fuji has their line in the ECOMAXX-T.

Pick your plate and platesetter first. Then leverage that purchase for your new rip. I am sure they will work with you. Main thing to remember when making this purchase it to just look directly at the tasks needed. Rip/Trap is a given.

Cory Sawatzki
[email protected]

 

[Qbot]

We will be making a decision soon on XMF or Prinergy (from rampage). On the Litho side we have three 40" presses and one 25". For Large Format we have an Inca and a Screen Trupress (flatbeds). Our only Digital machine is a Xerox Igen. The type of jobs we run are very custom (lots of dielines, spot colors, varnish, foils etc) My question is this "which system offers the best level of efficiency". Right now we have a mix of half supplied pdf and half native files from customers. Our sales/csr expect hard proofs and or LowRez pdf's same day or next day. Imposition is a big deal for us as a lot of jobs have multiple versions with different page sizes. From what I understand Prinergy has no imposition capabilities so most users would use preps and XMF has it's own imposition built in.

 

[zoran]

I like Cory's advice, go with platesetter and plates first and work from there, everybody is after consumables.
Workflow is mostly one time purchase and service contract is the only way for vendor to keep making money on it.
At any point in time you can cancel service contract if you are brave or have in house help, consumable deal like plates keeps money flowing all the time, you have to have plates.

My advice is do not limit yourself to one or two workflows you heard or "know" are good or best, make it a year project, line up all the vendors you can think of and go see demos of each product.
I brought DVD of the worst files I could find and collect over years of working as prepress operator and I gave it to every vendor to run them through their workflow in front of me.

You might be surprised with result.

I evaluated 5 years ago, most major workflows and my recommendation was Prinect as it was the only rip that run those files without hiccup and couple ones that choked on were fonts issues but at least it presented clear message on what is problem with files, which I did not see from other rips, usually they would choke on unknown errors, etc..
I was shocked as I started going down the path of "I want Prinergy...".
At the end it was business decision and Prinect came out cheaper both in purchase and in service contract after but was not lacking anything from Prinergy, actually we got much better tools for spot colours, varnishes, etc.. that Prinergy did not have or were rudimentary.
It helped also that we have Heidelberg presses.
Signa Station, planning/imposition tool is the best on the market, especially when paired with Prinect workflow, but can be used with others.
It can be complex at time, but complexity is coming from capability, there is nothing you can not do with it.

Each workflow has it's bells and whistles, make sure to test all the ones that are important to you and your shop.

 

[Raymond Ramirez]

Thank you Rich Apollo about "hybrid". The worst thing with sales is that they are apt at pointing at the other manufactures flaws instead of their own. Quite honestly they are all expensive and they all have their flaws. The FFEI ( Crossfield engine. (Formally Fuji)) XMF and Sierra are the same engine. Prinergy and Esco are awesome. There is no rip that talks to all devices. Just as stated above there has to be some type of interface between the workflow and imager. Priced out and value I would go with a used PTR 4300 s with XMF or Sierra. Rampage is no longer unless you purchase a 13 cheap. You are on your own with Rampage. I know about 90 percent of Rampage.