Risograph ComColor

[tsprinter]

Does anyone have any experience with any of the Risograph ComColor machines? On paper, it looks like it would be a great solution to save print labor and time but have they "perfected" digital inkjet? Any other solutions that would work for digital production environments? I have a Ricoh c900s but am looking for a solution for envelopes, letterhead and textured stocks, such as laids and linens.

 

[Joe Duffy]

I have 2 Com Colors now and had 4 previously. They are a good solution for envelopes and it depends upon your stock for textured and letterhead.
Have they perfected inkjet - no... but it is a very good alternative at a good price. The newest series feeds envelopes better but they do jamb and they really are best if you run them - alot. I had 4 machines and put 4-5 million on each engine over 18 months and that was just about the perfect amount for them. We did daily and weekly scheduled maintanace to keep them running and they just performed. Had only 2 or 3 service calls in that time. You have to profile the print to get best results and you have to let the ink dry back to do the profile. Send someone to get trained on the unit to do simple repairs and keep them tuned. PM me if you have any specific questions.

 

[arossetti]

Depends on the image quality you are looking for. ComColor is good for invoices and the such but the output looks like a 1990's home inkjet printer.

 

[WaffleStomper]

In my experience with the comcolor, images are very good but that depends on substrate. The better the paper the better the image. Similarly, output depends on your image source, and what types of images. If you ask a Comcolor salesman for the Coke Can image on Riso card stock your mouth will drop down. We have a Comcolor 3010. Its 'wow'.

 

[BobRym]

We have had the previous HC5500 and now have a ComColor - many millions of prints on them. The quality is totally what you want it to be - increase the ink coverage and use the right stock and it can be amazing - but the ink cost can quickly get out of hand on high coverage work in comparison to other options. We do produce some high quality work on it - specifically letterhead where we can use high quality stocks and the amount of ink being used is minimal (thus maximizing profit). Best used for industrial quality, lower coverage work - NCR (number as print merge and eliminate crash numbering and use colour in the design to enhance form) , envelopes (most profitable due to minimal ink), envelopes with mailing addresses at same time as return address (can charge a premium for this due to print merges), window envelopes (no heat in print process), VDP and transactional jobs, industrial manuals, flyers etc. Key is to design to the capability of the machine thus maximizing profit. Only problem is there is no easy way of estimating your ink cost - if RISO ever figures this out - will be even more useful.

 

[scubadunc]

We have had the previous HC5500 and now have a ComColor - many millions of prints on them. The quality is totally what you want it to be - increase the ink coverage and use the right stock and it can be amazing - but the ink cost can quickly get out of hand on high coverage work in comparison to other options. We do produce some high quality work on it - specifically letterhead where we can use high quality stocks and the amount of ink being used is minimal (thus maximizing profit). Best used for industrial quality, lower coverage work - NCR (number as print merge and eliminate crash numbering and use colour in the design to enhance form) , envelopes (most profitable due to minimal ink), envelopes with mailing addresses at same time as return address (can charge a premium for this due to print merges), window envelopes (no heat in print process), VDP and transactional jobs, industrial manuals, flyers etc. Key is to design to the capability of the machine thus maximizing profit. Only problem is there is no easy way of estimating your ink cost - if RISO ever figures this out - will be even more useful.

How would you rate the ComColor to the HC5500? We have a HC5500 and envelope printing is slow, with or without variable printing on the fly...

 

[BobRym]

How would you rate the ComColor to the HC5500? We have a HC5500 and envelope printing is slow, with or without variable printing on the fly...

We do not find the speed a problem but I guess it would depend on your expectations - if we were doing more envelopes I would closer look at the envelope feeder option that is available. Speed might be related to which controller you have as well. We do our variable data by "marrying" the background with the variable data on the controller rather than sending each piece as a complete print - way faster (send the background image to archive then send the variable data in and "impose" the variable data on top of the archived image).

 

[mauri]

Printquality is not good. Risograph ComColour colour is very light, no good. Normally copyprinter print quality is lots better.
We plan buy it, but when see quality, no. This is our comment.