Xerox 560 vs KM C6000

[18D]

I do about 25,000 to 60,000 clicks a month. Most of which are sales letters we send to prospective clients (Finch Brt Wht 8.5 x 11 paper) the other are sale kit inserts (carolina 14pt 18 x 12 short grain, impostion/step and repeat on the Creo)
Currently I have a Xerox DC 250 with a Creo rip. It's been good to me. The obvious choice would be to go with what I know, there would be no down time for training on the Xerox 560. But what I want to know is can the Konica C6000 compete?

Also with my old 250 I can do well over 200,000 prints without a service call.

Any help will be much appreciated, we want to make a decision before the end of July.

 

[andy1]

Hi,

In my opinion running 25-60k A4 (or Letter) clicks on a c6000 would be serious underuse. I've heard from engineers and users of Xerox and KM kit that underuse causes some quality degridation due to developer and toner settling. Plus the x560/c6000 is an incredibly expensive piece of kit for printing letters. The c5501 which we recently purchased likes to run 40-60k SRA3 (80-120k A4/Letter) per month to run smoothly, and this is one below the c6000/x560.

Personally, for your purpose, I would stick to an office box like the Xerox docucolours, much cheaper and the quality gain with a larger c6000 or X560 wouldn't justify the cost.

Not sure about your application colour requirements but have you considered buying in letterheads and running something like an OKI es9130 black and white machine? Would work out significantly cheaper than any of the above colour printers.
http://www.okiexecutiveseries.co.uk/mono-printers/detail.aspx?prodid=tcm:123-3971&tab=0

I'd avoid OKI colour machines like the plague but the B&W's have a good rep for being reliable.

Andy

 

[18D]

Thanks Andy, you bring up a good point about quantity. We are considering out-sourcing our Sales Letter which is the bulk of what I do on the machine. I'd hate to get a light production machine and have it sit. I noticed with my X250 that it runs better when I'm doing higher volume.
Andy, do you work with Creo or Fiery? If so which do you prefer?

 

[andy1]

Hi,

To be honest if you outsource your supplier will likely be using the same machine as you plus markup. How about getting a used c5501 or even a c5500 if quality isn't an issue, then buying consumabes? Toner cartridges good for 25k A4 prints are only $50-60 (drums, etc...are of course an extra)! Could work out cheaper than outsourcing...or of course if you run high coverage consider a used box, or for that matter what's wrong with your x250? Seems it's a good box to carry on using, the 252's were going very cheap when I last enquired.

As for an alternative Konica don't make a box as 'cheap' as the DC252 unless you consider one of their office multifunctions but I'm under the impression the DC252 is the best product for the light in-house production market. Konicas are either too low-volume or too high volume for your use.

I currently have a Fiery and to be honest it's buggy, slow and crashes a lot but hey it does the job and came in a bundle for free. Creo's have a great reputation in the industry whereas Fierys have a reputation for being slow and buggy. I don't have the money or the justificaiton to buy a Creo, I'd advise you look up the advantages for both to suit your application, but the extra cost of a Creo may not be cost effective for your use.

For mail merges or variable data don't buy into any mega expensive software, there's plenty of sub-$100 VDP softwares out there. An amazingly good one for simple numbering is Numbering Star, exports full quality PDF and supports job tiling (2 A4's on an A3 sheet for example).

Andy

 

[18D]

I wish Joined this forum sooner! Its been trial and error til now.
I use a Creo rip, and it's awesome! The Marketing department likes using me as an on demand print shop. They make frequent changes to our sales collateral so I print as needed. They want pro quality. And fast turn around. The X250 w/ Creo rip that I use currently is awesome, but out dated. The 250 does not support my current Mac software, so software for variable data doesn't play nice. I was hoping to get current. I was leaning more toward the X560 but now I'm almost liking the C5501 as long as I can get a creo rip! Buying used might work, but I wear many hats around here, I'm a office manager that services 200 employees who happens to run the print shop (lay offs and bad economy) so a service contract and a new machine would help me combat my workflow. Your input has been tremendously helpful.

 

[andy1]

Unlike some people you speak to I'm not a xeroid or a KM-lover, I like to think I'm neutral. I purchased a KM based on build quality and consistency due to the work I do (a lot of heavy card, tight registration essential for duplex). But the KM may not be the machine for you, last time I checked the X252 was around £15,000 all in with Fiery, whereas the c5501 new is £25k as a special offer.

The difference, anyone will agree, is the KM is a much better built machine and far more robust than the DC252, compared to the x560 it's mere opinions (lots of argument over DPI). If the DC250 did your job for you, I'd stick to the DC252/260. 2nd user they're likely to be touching £10k with very low mileage (I've no idea of US prices by the way) as they were being sold new late 2010.

The reason I didn't buy the c6000 and the reason I wouldn't buy a x560 is they are new technology, the engineers aren't as familiar with their quirks as they are the old kit. The c5501 seems to be considered the workhorse of the KM range, all the engineers know it and can tweak it to suit your exact requirements (within reason), I'm sure the same goes for the DC252.

Word of caution though, service seems to be hit and miss. In the UK Xerox has quite a poor rep whereas KM, in my experience is second to none, incredible service from everyone. In the US the reverse seems to be true so you need to consider how important uptime and service callout leadtimes are to you, and consider purchasing from Xerox or KM directly.

Andy

 

[18D]

It think its the Tech.

It think its the Tech.

Word of caution though, service seems to be hit and miss. In the UK Xerox has quite a poor rep whereas KM, in my experience is second to none, incredible service from everyone. In the US the reverse seems to be true so you need to consider how important uptime and service callout leadtimes are to you, and consider purchasing from Xerox or KM directly.

Andy[/QUOTE]

We've had the same Tech for years, he's awesome! But recently Xerox went to a new model where the tech gets assigned a random job in a particular city and for the rest of that day he only gets jobs in the Area. No more 1 on 1. Sounds like a big company decision to me (not so hot on Big Corp Business). The current tech's are o.k., service is good.
P.S. How are Jobs looking in the UK? Maybe looking to get out of here! LOL

 

[andy1]

Xerox do have a good rep in US, Ikon rebadge Konicas and their service seems to be universally crap! Thankfully the UK is geographically smaller and we've got 6 KM production specialist technicians within 90mins drive, in fact we've had 4 call outs (machine wasn't actually faulty, just operator error) and all responded within 2hrs and fixed the issues without hesitation.

You do find with resellers they tend to skimp on parts, I've heard many horror stories which is why I paid more to go direct. Examples include replacing components of consumbales (i.e. drum blades, fuser belts, image belt rollers) instead of the entire unit, KM direct just replace the units to ensure nothing else goes wrong in the near future. This principle will likely be worldwide although it sounds like you've got a good supplier.

From what I can see the UK is recovering , there appear to be plenty of jobs on the professional jobs market (accountancy, legal, etc...), not so many for manual work though. Printing seems very random, lots of my trade contacts (and customers) are having surges of orders then long quiet periods. Depends a lot on area. As for moving here I wouldn't like to recommend it ;-), depends where in US you're from and where you move to.

 

[18D]

I'm from Los Angeles CA! I wouldn't mind getting away for awhile. Weather is beautiful and so are the girls, but it's too damn expensive, rude and crowded.
My Great Grandfather was English, my last name is Walker, and I love 70's-80's Punk Rock. Why not the UK ))

Sincerely,
Steve Walker
Office Manager/Print Production Specialist.
1-800-Dentist.