xerox 242 registration

[Island]

How good or bad is the registration of the xerox 242 real world from the oversize high capacity feeder?

 

[lfelton]

Check the CED, disregard everything the sales person tells you. CED is pretty accurate (1.5mm each side from memory, i.e. FTB max of 3mm - but like I said check the CED, my recollection may be wrong).

 

[Island]

Yes the CED says + / - 1.5 mm lead edge and + / - 1.7 mm side edge which sounds very bad.

What I'm after is to know whether a careful operator can work within this spec--is it off, but predictable/consistent... e.g. can you use the image shift to get an image where you want it and have it remain fairly close on a given stock from the high capacity feeder, even if you have to re-adjust manually for another stock, drawer, or environmental change--or is it entirely erratic meaning sheet 1 will be +1.5mm and sheet 2 will be - 1.5 mm and thus very difficult to cut or fold a run?

 

[Craig]

It is what it is, you can't make a silk purse from a sows ear! What are you going to do short of guiding each and every sheet running though the machine? That is the specifications of that box, if you want tighter registration you are going to have to pay for it. The 242 is a business color device, made to print pleasing color, it's not a production box. I am not trying to degrade you or your 242, but you get what you pay for. If you were sold the 242 based on "excellent" front to back registration then shame on Xerox, but I highly doubt they sold it based on something it will not do.

 

[Island]

Thanks Craig. I'm upgrading from a pair of business-class canon IRC3200s. These year-2003-design canons never had great registration, but it's better than 3 mm. With the canons I have to dial in the offset when loading 12x18 to +.03" to +.06"of the 11x17; once I do that I see real-world variance of +/- .85 mm which is tolerable if sometimes frustrating to cut.

If the 242 has such erratic feeding that registration varies 3 mm or 1/8" between sheets, that would seem to make it very difficult to use even for pages with 1/2" margins as I think about everyone would notice that variance. The rest of the CED seems fairly conservative so I was wondering if the registration people are seeing real world matches the CED (e.g. the CED warns that image quality on heavy or coated paper will suffer while the print quality on kromekote on the sample prints is great)

What is the lowest end xerox that will provide acceptable registration (say 1.5 mm total variance or +/- .75mm)

(I don't think the CEDs are online or available; I only have the one for the 242/252/260 that I've gotten a proposal for)

 

[X33]

Island,

even though the registration on the DC242 is +/-3mm front to back based on the CED, in the real world (from my personal experience) most people get something about +/-1.5mm front to back, some people get it dead on.

remember that you have tools on either RIP you choose for tray alignment and image shift. if the registration is off "mechanically", you can fix it via the RIPs software. Also, Xerox techs have a different adjustment via their diagnostic software. also, depending on the quality of the paper, you may need to turn the paper in a different direction to help. lastly, your designers should make the layouts (bleeds) based on these specs to avoid any issues.

the next step up is the Xerox 700, it has +/-1mm front to back registration, it's documented in the Xerox CED.

 

[lfelton]

Hmmm... I'm sure that rflores is much more of an authority on Xerox 2xx machines than me, however we ran about 1M impressions through our 250 in just over 12 months, so have some experience. We do quite a bit of brochure and booklet work and when we bought another new digital machine, two things were high on our "must have" list based on our experience with the 250. (1) FTB registration (accurately aligned multi-page spreads are difficult to achieve with a 2xx (2) feeding and duplexing coated stock (the 2xx does not duplex at all with coated and struggles to feed it).

It is true that you can fiddle with the artwork and the RIP image alignment and get the "zero state" to FTB align pretty much dead on. However, it will not hold this anywhere near 100% during a run and you will see considerable variance - again more or less depending on the stock you are running.

Don't get me wrong, the Xerox 2xx is a real workhorse and the print quality is great. We never regretted buying one (except in the first few weeks, during the traditional "it's a new digital machine, so everything breaks" period). If you need very accurate FTB registration though, it's not the machine for you.

 

[Craig]

In the Xerox line it would be the 700 or the 5000AP. Canon ImagePress 6000VP would work too. I'm not sure on the new Ricoh FTB registration, but I'm sure someone else might know. Keep in mind the prices are going to be significantly higher than the 242, and the boxes will be twice the size as well.

 

[smatros]

we used ohcf on dc250 with really bad results - constant paper jams and bad registration (of up to 5 mm). with x700 the situation was much better, but still not below 2mm. we print on 13x19" paper (appx. 330x480 mm)

 

[ian]

Registration on the 240

Registration on the 240

The registration on the 242,252 and 260 are out a lot as much as 1/8" when backed up when running full size sheets. We also have the Canon 3220 like you and I would say the Canon does a lot better job when it comes to registration. It seems only the production models register like the 6060, 5000, 7000, 8000 and Igen

Ian

 

[Massy]

I have been using the DC242 for a year now, I can tell you that the registration is very bad. it is worse when printing on heavy coated stock (300gsm or heavier). It is indeed frustrating, even if you managed to align one sheet using the 'image shift' function on the Command Workstation, the next sheet will be different. it is a nightmare! You have to keep away from very heavy coated stocks. Despite the bad registration we still love this machine because of the image quality, it's stunning compared to Konica Minolta's and the rest. You get good result even on litho paper. The other downside of this machine is the curling, very high fusing temperature causes ripples on any paper below 200gsm.

Anyway, we are now looking forward to upgrading to the 700.

 

[Keith]

I have a 252 and the registration, or lack-there-of, doesn't bother me. Must be the kind of work I do. Most of my customers just want it fast, not perfect. I just have to make sure there is plenty of bleed and safety area.

 

[jotterpinky]

We can usually get within a 1mm front to back on our DC250 for runs up to 500 sheets (it tends to drift over time so rechecking it every so often is necessary). This is after aligning the tray for the paper type and ensuring it's as close as possible by shifting the file. I find it's relatively predictable for the length of the run. However if you run some other sheet in the middle of the first job and go back to it sometimes it's changed. It also changes day to day so what might have lined up yesterday won't the next.

 

[X33]

I have been using the DC242 for a year now, I can tell you that the registration is very bad. it is worse when printing on heavy coated stock (300gsm or heavier).

you are not supposed to use media heavier than 300gsm.

Do you have an Oversized High Capacity Feeder? If not, you should.

Registration on this model is 1.5mm ... which should be good enough if you design with bleed.

 

[Massy]

you are not supposed to use media heavier than 300gsm.

Do you have an Oversized High Capacity Feeder? If not, you should.

Registration on this model is 1.5mm ... which should be good enough if you design with bleed.

Hi,

The heaviest media we used was 330gsm and the Xerox rep said it's ok.

Don't get me wrong, we do get good back to front registration on uncoated stock with a bit of tweaking.

Unfortunately, we don't have an OHCF. We do struggle a lot when we print on card or paper wider than A3. You have to keep loading the bypass tray.

The price we had from Xerox was extortionate, almost half the price of the machine. When we aquired the machine, we went for a finisher instead of an OHCF, that was a wrong decision because we could do all the finishing offline.

Only if we could swap the finisher with an OHCF.

Regards,

 

[Massy]

Image drift

Image drift

Calling all experts out there!

Can somebody put more light on this? It's about the image drift on heavy coated card stock.

Here is the story:

I first sent the job to the command workstation then I did "process and hold" and set quantity to 10. I checked the sheets one by one by measuring from the crop marks to the edge of the sheet. As expected, the image was all over the place, it was in a different position from sheet to sheet. I returned to the command workstation and this time I set quantity to 1 and hit the print button 10 times, the result was astonishing, the image was printed on the same place on all sheets.

I know this is not the most efficient way to print but it can help a lot with those small runs like business cards, postcards....etc.
As a matter of fact, I printed 1000 doouble sided business cards on a silk coated card which I couldn't even dream of doing on this machine plus there was only 2mm from text to trim marks, customer insisted on this. Usually I ask for 5mm. That has worked perfectly for me.

Anyone with an explanation, please?