Replace BW production printers, Xerox Docutech 6180 with?

[Yes U Can]

As already mentioned VarioPrint 6180 TITAN would be a good replacement. You're volume is ok. Tab printing is double sided. Duplex in one go so short paper path and less2none jams. Small footage; all paper input drawers are also inserters. All drawers have all paper sizes up to 35mm x 500 mm. For inline finishing there is an open interface to connect finishing in a later stage. Also gain productivity by using remote manager and an app on your mobile device.
Hope this helps. KR from The Netherlands

 

[Craig]

We have a Ricoh 8120 and don't like it. Can't wait for the lease to be up to be honest. Unless you are running white paper it is a pain in the butt. Will constantly jam even if you program paper as red or blue per their "fix". Never again will we get a Ricoh.

 

[jpfulton248]

We are more I guess of a production printer (as opposed to retail copy center), with several machines and a separate bindery department for finishing. Our BW volume is around 1 - 1.5 million mostly 11x17 impressions. Mostly 20# bond. Some tab stocks as well (we cut tabs in house so being able to mylar the output is important), but because we currently have 6180s generally no BW printing on coated stocks. Nothing super fancy. The image quality on the 6180s is pretty dated but most people buying BW work from us don't seem to mind.

For the last couple decades we have been exclusively Xerox, primarily because of the impression that they are the "best" as far as service goes. I'm not entirely convinced that this is still true, in my 11 years with this company I have seen Xerox tank on response time (often lucky if we even get next day service), few copies between service calls (frequent callbacks, problems not completely resolved until 2-3 technicians have been out here), preventative maintenance is no longer performed (Xerox only wants to replace parts as they break), our local service department has laid off many techs (which obviously kills the response time), and to top it off...yes of course our contracts go up 10% in cost every year like clockwork regardless of quality of service.

We are in the market to pick up two BW machines to swap out the 6180s with. Would like "similar" production capacity, though honestly a slightly slower but significantly more reliable machine would likely still exceed the productivity we currently achieve. In line finishing is not super important, however having several 11x17 trays for insertions is definitely something we need.


Of course Xerox has an answer...upgrade to Nuveras...but given our current level of satisfaction with their service we are not confident that the situation would change...just perhaps our image quality would be better .

So the question then is...how are the other guys? Do they make a reliable printer? Do they have enough technicians on staff to fix it fairly promptly?

We are possibly close to potentially closing on a deal with our local Xerox dealer on a used D125 (all black, 125ppm). We are also getting it with the oversized high capacity feeder which adds 2 oversized paper trays the the existing 2 oversized paper trays. I think the total capacity between those 4 trays is probably 4500 sheets of 20lb (it also has 2 trays that take 8.5x11, a bypass feeder and an inserter). I feel like Xerox falls short here. You're going to make a 125ppm machine and then skimp on the paper capacity options? Either way I think this is going to be a good decision for us. It's replacing all of our offset work. We'll be putting about 2 million clicks on it per year.

 

[jrsc]

We are possibly close to potentially closing on a deal with our local Xerox dealer on a used D125 (all black, 125ppm). We are also getting it with the oversized high capacity feeder which adds 2 oversized paper trays the the existing 2 oversized paper trays. I think the total capacity between those 4 trays is probably 4500 sheets of 20lb (it also has 2 trays that take 8.5x11, a bypass feeder and an inserter). I feel like Xerox falls short here. You're going to make a 125ppm machine and then skimp on the paper capacity options? Either way I think this is going to be a good decision for us. It's replacing all of our offset work. We'll be putting about 2 million clicks on it per year.

We have 2 Xerox D125. We put about 750,000 11x17 20# clicks on each of them every month. Just hit 10 million on them this week. For the most part they run good but do require a decent amount of service at that volume. A couple things to note:

1. The internal trays have never worked right for us on either machine. Constant jamming. Also the image may no line up on the sheets the same from the internal and high capacity trays.

2. The high capacity stackers are junk. Carts only fill up half the time before saying they are full. All our high capacity stackers on all our Xerox equipment is this way. So that's going to be your limit before paper feed.

3. I recommend adding the Fiery. Otherwise it just uses a basic print driver like a desktop printer with no job management. Plus you potentially have memory issues with bigger jobs. We had to wait a while to get our fiery so we had one hooked up without it for a while and it would do weird things with big jobs. Also we once had a job where the internal print diver caused a font issue on a couple pages in a book that we had never had on any other equipment before.


We also have an older Ricoh 1107 and a newer Ricoh 8200. Both of those get a bit less volume because the 1107 is nearing end of life and is having more problems and the 8200 we tend to run more specialized work on it because the image quality and paper handling are amazing. Both can print a better image that the Xerox's though but the majority of our black prints are book pages with black text so the D125's work fine for that and that is all we run on them. Our volume is still growing so we have an Oce Varioprint 6320 coming next week. I'm excited to see if that works as well as advertised.

 

[arossetti]

Other thing to note on the D125 is the paper path, it is prone to jamming just because it is so tight. Not a bad printer especially for the volumes you are talking about.

 

[jpfulton248]

1. The internal trays have never worked right for us on either machine. Constant jamming. Also the image may no line up on the sheets the same from the internal and high capacity trays.

Not sure if I understand the issue correctly but I think you can change the position of the image (registration) per tray. It would probably be quite difficult to correct but I think it could probably be done.

 

[JustinB]

If I were doing 1.5 million b/w images a month on uncoated paper I wouldn't be looking at anything except inkjet. Océ (Canon) makes some incredible machines. Last I looked, they're way less expensive to run than toner boxes and go way longer between service calls.

 

[kslight]

We are possibly close to potentially closing on a deal with our local Xerox dealer on a used D125 (all black, 125ppm). We are also getting it with the oversized high capacity feeder which adds 2 oversized paper trays the the existing 2 oversized paper trays. I think the total capacity between those 4 trays is probably 4500 sheets of 20lb (it also has 2 trays that take 8.5x11, a bypass feeder and an inserter). I feel like Xerox falls short here. You're going to make a 125ppm machine and then skimp on the paper capacity options? Either way I think this is going to be a good decision for us. It's replacing all of our offset work. We'll be putting about 2 million clicks on it per year.

I think their justification is because this is an office type machine designed for..well...office use, not production. That means people of all ages and strengths operating the equipment, so its designed for accessibility. No offense but I could never consider something like this for our volume of commercial printing. They die after 10 million clicks and need replaced. And since its an office device, that means service calls go to the office team and they are even slower than the production team to get out here (we have 2 J75s which are considered office color, even though they are configured much like the D125 you are considering with large trays and booklet makers).

 

[kslight]

If I were doing 1.5 million b/w images a month on uncoated paper I wouldn't be looking at anything except inkjet. Océ (Canon) makes some incredible machines. Last I looked, they're way less expensive to run than toner boxes and go way longer between service calls.

I have considered this idea, but don't these bear a high purchase price? Any idea what these would set us back? From what I can gather these are probably far out of our price range...

You could say we are not...early adopters when it comes to new technology...as you can guess by the fact we are still running 6180s. According to papers that I have read ANY modern machine even laser would be a significant savings in terms of energy costs. But it would be difficult to convince the owners to invest hundreds of thousands+ into a single black and white device, especially new technology we haven't used before.

 

[JustinB]

Inkjet isn't new technology. Océ has been making them for transactional printing (b/w on uncoated stock - transaction statements) for many years. You can't just say "the machine is expensive therefore we can't afford it." You have to look at the cost of the image as well. At 1.5 million b/w impressions a month, it's hard for me to imagine a scenario where toner is cheaper than inkjet. Additionally, depending on the machine, you could potentially go months without service. Your mileage may vary, but I think making this decision without seriously investigating inkjet is irresponsible.

 

[namelessentity]

Last I checked the inkjet machines are roll fed, so he couldn't run mylar tabs, or really anything else. I think Inkjet really only makes sense for transactional printing, it's not a good choice for mixed media. Also, even the lowest Varioprint 6000 model is rated for 300k to 2.5 million per month.

 

[kslight]

Inkjet isn't new technology. Océ has been making them for transactional printing (b/w on uncoated stock - transaction statements) for many years. You can't just say "the machine is expensive therefore we can't afford it." You have to look at the cost of the image as well. At 1.5 million b/w impressions a month, it's hard for me to imagine a scenario where toner is cheaper than inkjet. Additionally, depending on the machine, you could potentially go months without service. Your mileage may vary, but I think making this decision without seriously investigating inkjet is irresponsible.

Coming from Docutech technology, *everything* in the copy world is new. ;-) Its been an uphill battle to get the antiquated equipment out of here.

If you don't mind me asking...what do these machines really cost, ballpark? To buy, to use, and to maintain. I have no idea. Everywhere I've worked has only run various laser and/or offset devices. I realize cost by dealer and region will vary, but I don't like to send sales reps on a wild goose chase unless I am pretty sure we could be convinced. I'm not the one that needs sold on it, its those that write the checks.

 

[halmac]

We have a Canon Varioprint DP135. It is super dependable. We have had only 4 calls outside the regular maintenance. Make sure you get the continuous stacker. The advantage of the Varioprint 6000 series is duplexing. They print both sides at the same time so back to back registration is always perfect.