Xerox 5000AP or 2nd hand Indigo 3050

DocuGo!

Member
Hi All,

I am a newbie in here, our print shop about to put another investment for print engine.
I have to choose between new DC5000AP with DocuSP (I really hope it comes with Adobe PrintEngine similar to Nexpress front end because it's the best RIP I've ever seen) or 2nd Hand HP 3050 (price nearly twice of new DC5000AP).

HP 3050
Quality similar to offset with aqueus ink (DC5000AP similar with offset UV ink), more colour gamut, great for photos, less banding/streaking, can do pantone, we can get new Agency customers because at the moment we are using DC5065 which is great for Document works but shitty on Graphic Arts works.

the downside I have to maintain the press by cleaning it every week which i don't want to do.

DC5000AP
Quality is acceptable, shinny result (which I personally like because its like offset quality with UV ink)

Downside: doesn't stick with lamination film, I would find too many service call with xerox, re-sell value is not good because it's a big plastic box.


At the moment 90% of my customers are office peoples, Our print shop need more sales by grabbing agencies with offices near our shop. They don't want to print with us because we don't use indigo.

I want to know what do you guys think?

Craig what do you think? because you seems a happy Xerox Customers Do you get much works from Big agencies with 8000AP?
 
DocuGO,

One comment on the laminate D&K makes a super stick laminate that works very well with almost all digital printed sheets that have fuser oil on them.
 
Well, I don't know much about either except the Indigo is extremly hard to drive and is only as good as the operator. The 5000 will be a bit more friendly.
 
DocuGo,
Indigo is only as good as it's operator. Like Random said it's a hard machine to drive, if you are not willing to put the labor into it to keep the quality up you will not be happy.

As far as the work we run on the 8000AP, it is across the board from mom and pop shops to the very large corporations. None have EVER asked what device it will be printed on, EVER! Most wouldn't know an 8000AP from a CLC350, or even care. We are printing small sell books for one agency right now, they range from 16 to 48 pages 4/4 on 100lb gloss text covers and 80lb gloss text insides in qty's of 100 to 500 books. We run a ton of 5.5 x 8.5 mailers on 100lb gloss cover 4/4 ranging from 200 to 36,000 pieces. Tri-Fold brochures from a few hundred to 5,000, only about 25% of the work is VDP .

Don't get all caught up in whether it's an Indigo or not, but more like the quality of output vs your budget, and what kind of growth will it allow you to have in the future. Trust me if your quality is comparable to an Indigo, and your price to the agency is less, you will get the work eventually.
 
The 3050 is the previous version of the 3500 much like the 5000 is to the 5500. The thing to remember with indigo is that while I like the press and we do quite a bit of volume with them they are not as fast as other 4-color devices.

They run 16,000 revolutions an hour no matter what. So 1-color is 16,000 2-color is 8,000 3-color is 4,000, and 4-color is 2,000. That 2,000 an hour means 33.3 A4/8.5x11 ppm, if you run that 2-up you will get 66.6. So depending on what your work is the indigo is either faster or slower. Running the 5, 6, or 7th colors will drop it down even more and may be more of an expensive overkill. The few machines that have the additional colors beyond 4 rarely use it in our plants.

You need to really understand you volume and anticipated growth before you decide. If you want to run spot colors totaling less then 4 you can have a speed advantage but need to account for downtime on this model as you can not clean out the ink stations while printing. You also will only have one main paper feeder and a smaller secondary one.

You should also check and see where service will come from on both of the devices as well as where you would place the machines. For both you should place them in a clean temperature and humidity controlled room that is free of spray power and dust.

I'm not trying to say the indigo is a bad machine, while you need to do some maintenance yourself you will for the most part not have to worry about going down with nothing to do but wait for the technician. All machines break down sometimes but having the ability to do a lot of the fixes yourself can be beneficial. It also allows you to control the quality if your customers need high quality replace the standard consumables that are included in you click charge, if not leave them in longer for better up time utilization.

If I had to make the decision I would be concerned about buying a machine that is not only used but not available in the same model new. In general digital equipment at most has an 18 month competitive advantage before something else comes along that's better whether from the same manufacturer or a competitor. Since you are just starting to grow in the Graphic Arts area I'd have to agree with others that the 5000AP probably is a better fit with a lower risk/ investment cost. If things take off you will be able to add additional equipment or replace it with something faster and newer with the cash you saved.
 
Indigo is a great machine with High quality. 3050 is not a user friendly machine. You need to have a good operator to run the machine with good maintenance schedule. HP indigo Press 5500 is much more easier. 3050 is much use for high value pages business.
 
Indigo

Indigo

We've got a 3050 and we're pretty happy with the quality and service.

The only thing I might add is conider any automation you might do with web2print and your potential variable data jobs. Currently none of the onpress RIPs of any model will support an optimized PDF that utilizes caching. I'm not sure about the other models, but the 3050 won't accept PPML either.

Most of the big w2p packages I've looked at don't speak JLT which means you'd need a standalone rip, ie the SmartStream Producton Pro that probably starts around 80K - I think.
 
The other thing that you have to bear in mind is that an Indigo will be much more expensive to run than the "equivalent" Xerox and this is especially true when you are starting out. So, if your target customers are price sensitive, that needs to be considered. On the other hand, Indigos have a slightly better print quality on certain jobs, are able to reproduce a wider range of Pantone colours accurately and have a reputation for being able to hit colours more reliably on repeat jobs.

Including "clicks", 5 year capital costs and maintenance not covered by click charges (these calculations do not factor in any other costs) it works out like this:-

25000 216%
50000 200%
75000 191%
100000 166%
125000 161%
150000 157%
175000 155%
200000 146%
225000 144%
250000 143%
275000 141%
300000 140%
325000 139%
350000 138%
375000 137%
400000 131%

Where the first column is the monthly 4-colour impression count and the second column is how much more expensive the Indigo is compared to the HP.

These numbers were crunched on a Xerox 7000AP vs an HP Indigo 5500 but there's very little difference with a 7000AP vs an HP 3500.

Bear in mind that 400,000 (or 1.2million impressions as HP measure it) is close to the theoretical maximum (single shift) for both machines and unless you are running long jobs and are very lucky, you're not going to get anywhere close to that on a single shift.

Hope that helps.
 
good point

good point

lfelton brings up a good point re the operating costs. I'm not familiar with Xerox pricing. Just an observation from my perspective though: Given the current conditions, clients don't care much about quality any more and price is their primary concern. Turnaround is 2nd, everyone is waiting until the last minute more than ever. Is it just our market or is the world going mad? lol.
 
Hi Guys,

I decided to go with DC5000AP with CREO, I like it very much. Quality is good, when I print on gloss artpaper is beautiful like offset finish. duplex 300gsm is the best feature from 5000AP :)
 

PressWise

A 30-day Fix for Managed Chaos

As any print professional knows, printing can be managed chaos. Software that solves multiple problems and provides measurable and monetizable value has a direct impact on the bottom-line.

“We reduced order entry costs by about 40%.” Significant savings in a shop that turns about 500 jobs a month.


Learn how…….

   
Back
Top