Replacing iGen3's HELP iGen4, NexPress, Bizhub or Imagepress

[MARSGOLD]

Not meant to bash... just look at everything first and the price last. If you budget shop for a production machine you will get what you got. I've seen to many people get a machine on price alone and then get burnt because it would not perform up to their expectations or future needs. There is no worse feeling then cutting your first set of business cards and finding out the sheets bounce around +/- 1mm and your margins look like a 5 year old cut them.

I don't have much problem about sheets bouncing +- 1mm. It's already the case with my CPS900 (it's even worse, it can even go up to 2,5mm sometimes. But 1mm is the norm. And I am not talking about paralelism). But I like the CPS900.

My choice is :
Reconduct the CPS900 for 3 years (it's dirty cheap and I know what I can expect. What I scare is the service, I will be one of the last on the planet to have the machine and it's going to be a problem to repare it properly, at least quickly). To reconduct the CPS900, I have to take a DP Line or a varioprint 4000. The 4000 is not bad but I am sure to have the same problem as the CPS900(be one of the last to have the machine, it's already difficult to find someone who own one). The DP line is expensive but for what I have seen, you get the best quality it's possible to get on B&W. I just wonder if it would hold the quality over time(way too much plastic to my liking, and it seems a little bit light builded).

The second choice it to take a C7000 with a KM B&W (125 pages/min). It's not perfect, and not the cheapest choice. But the quality price seems good. And I will be able to win money(I can't work at loss)on both.

The situation with the Xerox 4112 doesn't seems to improve (the quality is only getting worse over time. The specialist is going to come again(I can't count how many time he have been here, +- 20 times on 8 month). But I start to wonder what the problem is, absolutely everything was replaced recently exept the motor).
And my varioprint 2090 is really getting old. I have to replace it.

KM is warned, we have been in trial with canon in the past and they lost (for a CLC4000). Some condition will be writed on the contract.

Another solution is also possible : stop the business.

Of course, it would be nice to hold a varioprint 6250 with a DP line for the black & white and a nexpress with another sytem in back up. But I am really not sure about the volume. I prefer to work a little bit harder and be sure to pay the bill. And if things imrove, it's always possible to buy something (they struggle to sell anything at the moment)

 

[Craig]

Don't get caught up in one vendor either. We have Xerox for color and Konica Minolta for B/W. Look into a Xerox 8080, they replace my old 8000AP with one a few months back with a substantial savings. I was never much for Xerox B/W line unless you can afford a Nuvera. I have had pretty good luck with our KM 1200.

That Canon CLC4000... RUN as fast as you can from that!! I had one several years ago and it is junk! It logged 135 service call in the last year we had it, that's 2.6 service calls a week!!!

 

[MARSGOLD]

For the moment, xerox is out of the equation. Because I am afraid of a serious possible problem.
I have to buy the material via a reseller. And the sales are not good at all. If this reseller can't pay the bills to xerox, no service will be available. And I am not talking about the possible mayem of this reseller going bankrupt.
Anyway, the 8080 is way too expensive,about 4X the price of the KM (and they want a 6 years contract! It's way too long)

We got a docutech in the past(a while ago). I prefer by far the OCE varioprint 6150 who is much much cheaper. It's really sad OCE didn't agree to reconduct the contract(and don't sell anymore the 6150).
It also happened more than once that the machine was out for one week with a tehcnician working on it. And it was alway when a lot of work must be done. I hope they improve this as the machine wasn't reliable. To the defense of xerox, they were in serious trouble back then.
I have run jobs of 25/30 hours non stop on the OCE 6150 without any problems more than once(A3 two sided).
But, of course, you have to keep in mind the problem with hte toner from OCE (it is said that they are working on this and a new system is coming in the next few years)
It's also important to have enough two sided work (as the price for single sided is the double on the 6000 series)

The problem with the CLC4000 was that Canon refused to make the technical interventions(justified. A blue(cyan) line on the sheets(and some other problems). You may know what I am talking about if you got one). The monthly payment was stopped (if I can't work on the material because they refuse the maintenance, I am not going to pay).
After a 3 years trial, they lost the case. But I hope it's not going to happens again (the stress, the cost of the trial,..)

 

[Mark Flanders]

HI,

I'm biased toward HP Indigo presses. I gather you're going away from the best because of price. Having said that, I have run the Ricoh C900 and for a mid level production machine it does a pretty darn good job. Just get the technicians to have a spare fuser on hand. Our facility has 4 Igens along with the indigos, and the one thing I've heard is the very big difference between the 3 and the 4. The 4 is a huge improvment over the 3 with regard to color consistancy and reliability. If you hang onto one of your 3s, you may find yourself not wanting to use it. The others mentioned, I have no direct experiecne with. Good luck!

 

[MARSGOLD]

HP is not very friendly in Belgium also. You have to be very very motivated to make business with them!
Anyway, I don't have the volume(by far) and given the economical environment it would be a miracle to see an improvement.
OCE made an incredible low offer for a canon color material but the quality is not there and given the previous problems with the CLC4000 I don't expect the quality to improve once the machine is buyed(quite the contrary)

So, decided to te KM offer. Would see if time give me reason.
Difficult to have more problem than with the CLC4000 and the xerox4112.

Thanks for your answer, anyway!

 

[Despotes]

Two 8002's with two 8080's coming. Overall not bad machines.

 

[Lammy]

NexPress has probobly the best feeding and registration system in the industry. It's the ONLY machine to use the same lead edge and side edge for duplexing. Having just been trained on iGen 4 I can tell you the IOP is far easier on the NexPress as well. the IOI is harder though but easy enough once it's learned. The down side of the NexPress is if you need to run a lot of large solids your going to have streaking that will only be solved by installing new image cylinders, which gets expensive quickly.

Since your an inhouse plant saving money is prolly the real issue management is going to look at, in which case I would go with the 7010s over the larger machines. Your contracts will most likely be far less and I'm certain your consumables compared to the NexPress will be.