Xerox Color 1000 Press with Xerox FreeFlow RIP - thoughts and experiences

[Frank A.]

Just wondering if anyone have any experience with the Xerox Color 1000 Press / Xerox FreeFlow RIP combo. I´m having lots of issues regarding output, but neighter me or Xerox seem to be able to pinpoint the problem to eighter the RIP or the press. Issues are missing graphic elements, color-matching from one day to another, loads of unexpected shut-downs on both RIP and press, major problems with APPE and problems regarding detection of BW/color clicks (counter reads BW as color even if it´s defined in BW as an exeption-page. My frustration-level is rising, and we´re concidering switching to a Creo RIP. I´m still not confident that this will solve the problems.

Does anyone have some usefull input on this?

 

[JoshB]

Are missing graphical elements a common problem, or just something that you saw happen once? Out of thousands of files run through a FreeFlow I've only seen that happen a couple of times.

I got burned unexpectedly on color clicks. I've never been able to get the rules clearly laid out, but it seemed to me that if ever there was ever an opportunity to use color, the color click would be charged. Images in particular could be tricky because an RGB black or a K only CMYK seems to cause a color click. We send everything through a preflighting process that converts all color-spaces to gray now, even if we "know" that no color is used.

No idea if it would be the same issue, but we did have one Docucolor that experienced random shutdowns. If I remember it turned out that the cable or interface cards connecting the FreeFlow to the controller were shaky, and if ever there was an interruption between the two the system was very unhappy about it.

 

[JoshB]

I'd meant to preface that by saying that we have a number of Docucolors but not a 1000. I think that the FreeFlow RIP would act very similarly, though.

 

[Frank A.]

Unfortunately it´s a quite common problem with missing graphic elements. I´m not saying that they disappear for no reason, just seems that no-one can tell me the exact reason. I´ve tried multiple ways of making the PDF in combo with different settings on the FF. Some of the files are quite complex, but still... Regarding clicks, I´ve defined exeption pages on job-level, clearly set to BW. Counts as color though We´ve also walked the line with checking all cards/cabels/connections, no problems found.

Any experience with Creo?

 

[FlikP]

Creo CX1000 all the way

Creo CX1000 all the way

I am currently using a Xerox 1000 press with Creo CX1000 and its far superior than the FreeFlow RIP from Xerox. Simple things like not having to RIP a file when you make a change, the ability to RIP 2 jobs simultaneously, colour output!!

Also found using the Creo far easier with its new interface and its much faster as it RIPS to disk rather than physical memory. Also when printing a long job there is no shift in colour which i experienced with EFI and FreeFlow RIP after testing.

These are my thoughts......

 

[ShortRunMagazines]

I am the guy that returned my X1000 with Free Flow in December.

I had a ton of stability issues with the FreeFlow communicating with the IOT. Most were fixed by the last round of patches. Never noticed the Black only clicking as color (considering I paid $12,000 in clicks for our brief time together I hope it wasn't clicking K as Color). Check that the density sensor on the left end (as standing at the operator side) of the IBT Belt is clean. It's mounted on the IBT belt carrier assembly. I found ours would build up with toner and we'd get crap color. We got to the point we cleaned it out with air every other day. I believe it's called the MOB?!? sensor. When it was dirty our greens turned to blue.

Not good to hear the unit still doesn't work right... I guess I'm stuck with my DC5000s a bit longer.

 

[skidunn]

We have an 800 with a FreeFlow RIP. While we did have issues with b/w clicks billing as color Xerox took care of the issue and credited us because we tracked our billing and kept our account logs. As for the RIP there are some unique issues that may happen in the Adobe RIP but the generic PS RIP has been perfect everytime. Our clients are extremely happy with the color rendering and before we signed the lease I ran several of our clients files on all 3 RIP's and our top 10 customers selected the FreeFlow server quality 80% of the time. The other 2 took Fiery. We also like the hold folder functionality use more than the Firey. Fiery seems to have weird limitation for unique workflows.