PrintPlanet Community,
Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts. We are current considering purchasing a used digital press. See below for our profile and basic requirements:
Profile:
1. Manufacturer of mobile electronics accessories.
2. We have vinyl printing experience on Roland Printers.
3. We currently outsource printing for nearly 1M pieces/year on 14pt up to 12"x18" for use as packaging elements.
Issues:
1. Our outsources have been at times unreliable.
2. We do a lot of short runs (20-300 units) with very tight turnaround requirements.
Our goal is to bring our paper printing in-house by purchasing our own digital press.
Basic Requirements:
1. Ability to print variable data like barcodes and text blocks.
2. Our buget is $10-20K.
3. Cost effective for 500K-1M impressions a year.
4. Good print quality and color fidelity.
5. Integrate into a lean/on-demand manufacturing process.
Thoughts/questions:
1. I have been looking at used HP Indigo 1000 units on eBay in the price range. Is this a good solution for us? What other options are there?
2. We are completely inexperienced with this type of machinery, but are generally very proficient with digital manufacturing systems. Would we be in over our head?
3. What are typical yearly maintenance costs for a system like this? What are the risks in terms of high cost failures? Should/could we purchase a maintenance contract?
Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts. We are current considering purchasing a used digital press. See below for our profile and basic requirements:
Profile:
1. Manufacturer of mobile electronics accessories.
2. We have vinyl printing experience on Roland Printers.
3. We currently outsource printing for nearly 1M pieces/year on 14pt up to 12"x18" for use as packaging elements.
Issues:
1. Our outsources have been at times unreliable.
2. We do a lot of short runs (20-300 units) with very tight turnaround requirements.
Our goal is to bring our paper printing in-house by purchasing our own digital press.
Basic Requirements:
1. Ability to print variable data like barcodes and text blocks.
2. Our buget is $10-20K.
3. Cost effective for 500K-1M impressions a year.
4. Good print quality and color fidelity.
5. Integrate into a lean/on-demand manufacturing process.
Thoughts/questions:
1. I have been looking at used HP Indigo 1000 units on eBay in the price range. Is this a good solution for us? What other options are there?
2. We are completely inexperienced with this type of machinery, but are generally very proficient with digital manufacturing systems. Would we be in over our head?
3. What are typical yearly maintenance costs for a system like this? What are the risks in terms of high cost failures? Should/could we purchase a maintenance contract?