Upgrade from Konica C3070

[gazfocus]

The lease for our Konica C3070 is up in October and I've given the lease company our 3 months notice that we don't wish to continue the lease. Our aim instead is to purchase the title from Konica as we've done less than 200,000 prints on the machine so it's still a baby (we tend to print higher priced prints rather than tonnes of flyers, etc), but getting a figure for this is proving difficult.

Regardless of whether I manage to buy the title from Konica, I'm wondering if there's anything worth upgrading to at the moment? We've also got a Xerox Versant 80 which we bought used (on a service contract) and although I like certain things on the Xerox like SIQA (though frustrating you can't do the automated SIQA on SRA3 because the ADF only takes upto A3), but I feel like I know my way around the Konica more so can troubleshoot it a bit better before calling on the engineers.

So, what's a worthy upgrade or am I best just sticking with what I've got?
Doesn't have to be Konica or Xerox btw.

 

[bcr]

Not exactly your question but did you approach the lease company for a buy out figure? It sounds like you're asking Konica who will of course prefer to sell you a new machine.

When we did this last it was simply a question of approaching the lease company directly. Once we did that we then approached Konica nl to get them to agree to extending the service contract.

 

[gazfocus]

Not exactly your question but did you approach the lease company for a buy out figure? It sounds like you're asking Konica who will of course prefer to sell you a new machine.

When we did this last it was simply a question of approaching the lease company directly. Once we did that we then approached Konica nl to get them to agree to extending the service contract.

Yeah, so basically spoke to the lease company who gave me a 'settlement figure' to pay off the remainder of the contract. The settlement stated 'without title' and when I queried it, they told me the machine would go back to Konica (I bought it direct from Konica Minolta rather than a reseller). They said I'd need to negotiate buying the title with Konica direct.

I did get a quote from Konica last year but we weren't ready to pay off the lease, but this year they don't seem to be forthcoming. I have even said that I want to buy a second machine and keep the current one for other things but that I won't discuss a second machine until I get the price to buy the title for the current machine.

 

[jwheeler]

Has the machine been meeting your needs? If so, then there's not anything significantly different out there unless you want to add a 5th color station. Otherwise, keep it and enjoy not having a lease payment for several more years. I would advise that you keep a service contract going on it though. Just be aware that they might start to play games and increase your click costs to push you into upgrading. Consider investing in some new finishing or printing equipment that could add new services to your company instead.

 

[gazfocus]

Has the machine been meeting your needs? If so, then there's not anything significantly different out there unless you want to add a 5th color station. Otherwise, keep it and enjoy not having a lease payment for several more years. I would advise that you keep a service contract going on it though. Just be aware that they might start to play games and increase your click costs to push you into upgrading. Consider investing in some new finishing or printing equipment that could add new services to your company instead.

Thanks. Yeh it’s met our needs for the most part. The main issue is down to user laziness (aka mine) in not setting up papers properly so front to back registration isn’t spot on but it’s one of those things on my list to sort when I’ve got time. Everything else has been sorted by the support guys.

The only improvement could be in the finishing side of things. Our Xerox has a pro booklet finisher with square fold trimmer but is located upstairs so means any booklets I have to carry loads of paper up and down the stairs so would be nice to have booklet making downstairs….not against buying an offline booklet maker instead of another printer though.

 

[jwheeler]

An offline booklet maker would be a better purchase in the long run. These digital presses last maybe 7-10 years before the vendor declares them end of life and you have trouble getting parts/supplies. Offline finishers can last 20+ years. Plus, when you finish offline, you can run the press at it's full speed and/or move on to print other jobs while your offline finisher does the binding. Additionally, when the inline bookletmaker goes down, it can sometimes make your entire printer goes down unless you can output through an earlier exit tray.

If you do want to keep it inline, KM has the SD-506 which will only do a face trim, or you can get the SD-513 which will do a 3-edge trim, plus it can crease the cover and squareback the spine. As them for the spec and install guide to see the page count limitations for different stocks...niether one is as robust as a plockmatic. KM also offers the Plockmatic and Watkiss in-line, but at that point, you should go offline.

 

[gazfocus]

An offline booklet maker would be a better purchase in the long run. These digital presses last maybe 7-10 years before the vendor declares them end of life and you have trouble getting parts/supplies. Offline finishers can last 20+ years. Plus, when you finish offline, you can run the press at it's full speed and/or move on to print other jobs while your offline finisher does the binding. Additionally, when the inline bookletmaker goes down, it can sometimes make your entire printer goes down unless you can output through an earlier exit tray.

If you do want to keep it inline, KM has the SD-506 which will only do a face trim, or you can get the SD-513 which will do a 3-edge trim, plus it can crease the cover and squareback the spine. As them for the spec and install guide to see the page count limitations for different stocks...niether one is as robust as a plockmatic. KM also offers the Plockmatic and Watkiss in-line, but at that point, you should go offline.

Yeh I think offline would be the way to go.

I remember when we bought the Konica C3070, I was blown away with how expensive the finishing modules were compared to the likes of Xerox. As an example, we had a quote for the Versant 180 and the decurler was about a third the price of Konica so offline would definitely be cheaper in the long run.

 

[kslight]

When I went down this path on our former KM 6085, the buyout number was provided by KM. And it was an absolutely horrifying number, people I told about couldn’t believe how much value KM still placed in it….the printer certainly didn’t have 1/4 the value on the market that they still thought it did. So we opted to pitch it back to them, for other reasons also, and went to a Ricoh 7210x.

And yeah, km did drag their feet to give out buyout figures. This shouldn’t take more than 3-5 business days. I suspect that if you tell them Ricoh / Xerox / canon are coming in to try to sell you something else, they may be a little more inspired.


For your amount of volume, it’s probably not worthwhile to buy another machine if this works fine for you and if KM gives you a reasonable purchase number. However if your experience is like mine, and service costs of having an old machine, it still may make more sense to switch to a new machine.

I am absolutely a proponent of an offline booklet maker, unless you have a specific high volume application that fits within the limited parameters of most inline systems. We bought a duplo dbm150 and face trimmer with our new Ricoh, and it is extremely flexible (size and thickness), efficient for our volume (100 books takes maybe 10 minutes to hand feed), and it made sense for us. Of course, this machine is not inexpensive either, but will last nearly forever probably.

 

[Ynot_UK]

I remember when we bought the Konica C3070, I was blown away with how expensive the finishing modules were...

Exactly, and being tied to the engine these inline modules are effectively worthless when the engine reaches the end of life.
Whereas the same money invested in decent offline kit (Duplo, Horizon, Morgana, etc.) will leave you a machine with great resale value in five years time, or will still be running in 15-20 years time if you choose to hang on to it. Plus the bonus that you can use offline finishing with output from any engine, also from litho and unfinished print you've subbed out.

 

[gazfocus]

When I went down this path on our former KM 6085, the buyout number was provided by KM. And it was an absolutely horrifying number, people I told about couldn’t believe how much value KM still placed in it….the printer certainly didn’t have 1/4 the value on the market that they still thought it did. So we opted to pitch it back to them, for other reasons also, and went to a Ricoh 7210x.

And yeah, km did drag their feet to give out buyout figures. This shouldn’t take more than 3-5 business days. I suspect that if you tell them Ricoh / Xerox / canon are coming in to try to sell you something else, they may be a little more inspired.


For your amount of volume, it’s probably not worthwhile to buy another machine if this works fine for you and if KM gives you a reasonable purchase number. However if your experience is like mine, and service costs of having an old machine, it still may make more sense to switch to a new machine.

I am absolutely a proponent of an offline booklet maker, unless you have a specific high volume application that fits within the limited parameters of most inline systems. We bought a duplo dbm150 and face trimmer with our new Ricoh, and it is extremely flexible (size and thickness), efficient for our volume (100 books takes maybe 10 minutes to hand feed), and it made sense for us. Of course, this machine is not inexpensive either, but will last nearly forever probably.

When I got the price from KM last year it took a long time to get and I'd even told them I wanted to buy a second machine but wanted the title for the current machine first. I do feel like maybe my best hope would be to tell them I'm getting a quote from Ricoh or Xerox for a new machine.

Out of interest, where are you from and what (roughly) did you pay for your Ricoh? When I got a figure from Konica last year, they wanted £5k for the title. We "bought" the machine originally for £22k. I'm hoping they'll come back with a similar figure this time round, which would be a pretty good deal.

I've been looking at the Duplo booklet makers and think I'll likely go for one of those and try and get a used one. We don't do a whole load of booklets but when we do it can be orders of up to 500. As I say, we have a Xerox Versant 80 that I currently use but it's just tedious taking heavy packs of paper upstairs haha.

 

[Ynot_UK]

Out of interest, where are you from and what (roughly) did you pay for your Ricoh? When I got a figure from Konica last year, they wanted £5k for the title. We "bought" the machine originally for £22k. I'm hoping they'll come back with a similar figure this time round, which would be a pretty good deal.

That's a good deal, especially for a machine you've owned from new and has such low mileage.
Ensure the click tariff offered going forward is palatable. If it isn't, you may be able to get a dealer to take it on, although that would likely add a couple of thousand to the overall cost, since a new click provider will want to thoroughly inspect and replace some parts before taking it on.

 

[Ynot_UK]

We bought a duplo dbm150 and face trimmer with our new Ricoh, and it is extremely flexible (size and thickness), efficient for our volume (100 books takes maybe 10 minutes to hand feed), and it made sense for us. Of course, this machine is not inexpensive either, but will last nearly forever probably.

+1 for the DBM150. Ours is also hand feed, but this is no big deal and the process gives the added benefit that you are QC checking the front cover of every booklet fed.

The icing on the cake for us was adding a Morgana/Plockmatic SQ104 square fold unit on the end, to replace where the exit ramp and roller would normally be. This configuration together is the shortest and smallest footprint trim & squarefold combination on the market today.

 

[gazfocus]

That's a good deal, especially for a machine you've owned from new and has such low mileage.
Ensure the click tariff offered going forward is palatable. If it isn't, you may be able to get a dealer to take it on, although that would likely add a couple of thousand to the overall cost, since a new click provider will want to thoroughly inspect and replace some parts before taking it on.

Yeh that’s what I thought. A dealer I spoke to was saying he’d expect it to be higher and then quoted me £10k for a refurbished 2060.

Will definitely check with them on the click rate. Thanks

 

[gazfocus]

+1 for the DBM150. Ours is also hand feed, but this is no big deal and the process gives the added benefit that you are QC checking the front cover of every booklet fed.

The icing on the cake for us was adding a Morgana/Plockmatic SQ104 square fold unit on the end, to replace where the exit ramp and roller would normally be. This configuration together is the shortest and smallest footprint trim & squarefold combination on the market today.

Any thoughts on Plockmatics? I’ve heard you can buy the ones that usually come with Ricoh presses and use them as manual feed.

 

[Ynot_UK]

Any thoughts on Plockmatics? I’ve heard you can buy the ones that usually come with Ricoh presses and use them as manual feed.

Indeed... and they are typically very cheap compared to their offline cousins, illustrating the point regarding poor residual value of inline finishing equipment once the engine is scrapped.

However it's not all so simple using them as an offline machine - here's a link to a recent discussion...

 

[gazfocus]

Indeed... and they are typically very cheap compared to their offline cousins, illustrating the point regarding poor residual value of inline finishing equipment once the engine is scrapped.

However it's not all so simple using them as an offline machine - here's a link to a recent discussion...

Hmm definitely more research needed them. Last thing I'd want is to stump up £4-5k and then find it needs a Ricoh connected to work.

 

[[email protected]]

Hmm definitely more research needed them. Last thing I'd want is to stump up £4-5k and then find it needs a Ricoh connected to work.

When a Plock is connected to a Ricoh you can undock it and use the hand feed however it will still be connected to the printer. All you're doing is moving it to the left a couple of feet on the plastic rails underneath. It's not made to unplug to roll it to the side and then easily plug it back in for inline use. You can however purchase an offline version from Ricoh of the same Plockmatic model for permanent offline use and put it wherever you prefer.

 

[kslight]

Any thoughts on Plockmatics? I’ve heard you can buy the ones that usually come with Ricoh presses and use them as manual feed.

I think a way more complicated device than the duplo, while also limited in book sizes, I’ve definitely heard the term Problematic coined when describing these, even when connected to a printer. That’s why I decided on duplo (I knew it’d just work and not need much if any service over its life).

When I got the price from KM last year it took a long time to get and I'd even told them I wanted to buy a second machine but wanted the title for the current machine first. I do feel like maybe my best hope would be to tell them I'm getting a quote from Ricoh or Xerox for a new machine.

Out of interest, where are you from and what (roughly) did you pay for your Ricoh? When I got a figure from Konica last year, they wanted £5k for the title. We "bought" the machine originally for £22k. I'm hoping they'll come back with a similar figure this time round, which would be a pretty good deal.

I've been looking at the Duplo booklet makers and think I'll likely go for one of those and try and get a used one. We don't do a whole load of booklets but when we do it can be orders of up to 500. As I say, we have a Xerox Versant 80 that I currently use but it's just tedious taking heavy packs of paper upstairs haha.

I’m in the US, and before inflation really hit..I’m guessing my price for the Ricoh wouldn’t be relevant…it’s also definitely the next tier up from the KM, not the same class.

But km wanted something to the effect of $50k (!) to buy the title of our worn out 6085. No thanks.

 

[bcr]

+1 for the DBM150. Ours is also hand feed, but this is no big deal and the process gives the added benefit that you are QC checking the front cover of every booklet fed.

The icing on the cake for us was adding a Morgana/Plockmatic SQ104 square fold unit on the end, to replace where the exit ramp and roller would normally be. This configuration together is the shortest and smallest footprint trim & squarefold combination on the market today.

Is that just face trim or can it also be specced for side trimming as well?

Do you know off hand how many sheets it can centre staple and at what weight?

 

[Ynot_UK]

Face Trim Only
We do up to 64 pages uncoated 80GSM with 160GSM cover, or 48 pages 135GSM digital silk
I think it's specced up to 80 pages of 80GSM