Who's got a color copier in their shop?

[Lammy]

What do you have? What do you think of it? How much do you run on it?

We're considering adding it to our business and you all know how much I appreciate your opinions

[Joe]

We've got a Lanier LC031. Prints up to 12" x 18" both sides which will give you 11" x 17" full bleed. It also will paginate, fold and staple. Max quantity we run is around 2,000. 2,500 if we have to. And no spots. The C-M-Y-K toners will not match Pantone colors so unless a customer approves it before hand we only do process on it or a basic Red/Black or Blue/Black two color.

Quality isn't bad. Good register. They keep it running quite a bit but truthfully we hardly ever use it as a copier and we rarely use the scanner capabilities. It hooks into our network and we feed it PDF's for all of our jobs. Rarely does anyone come in just wanting copies of a color print.

[pressgeek]

Lammy,

Our general situation here: 4 duplicators (Heidelberg, Itek and AB Dick), 4 colour 29 inch Miller, full letterpress, bindery, film, type and design.

After shopping around for a year and comparing image quality, we signed the lease on a Xerox DC240 with bustled Fiery RIP 2 months ago. We expected to do about 5 to 10 thousand sheets a month, and ended up with 35,000 on the counter after the first month, about 2/3rds of that in colour.

It has been and will continue to grow into a wonderful sales tool. We no longer have to send someone to a copy shop for work that is not economical to run offset. We no longer fear little old ladies bearing Publisher files. I don't see how we could have survived the last 2 months without this machine.

The biggest trouble we have is keeping the sales people in line with pricing and expectations. Their natural tendency is to sell it as a cheap alternative for short run work where quality is not a concern. I find that it just produces the smaller quantities of colour more economically. I don't even tell customers how we will do a job. When they want prices on 250, 500 and 1000, I price both digital and offset, give them the best price, then decide how to run the job once it is in the shop. There has never been an issue with quality on this machine, but we have been careful with the types of jobs we run on it.


Good luck!

[RobR]

Yeah....we have a Docucolor 250 all in one...scanner.....printer......coppier.....digital press
we use it as a digital press more than anything but we have ran a few color copy
jobs as well.......it's all good.

[Lammy]

Great info, keep it up guys!

[seetomtype]

We run about 30k clicks color a month, and 400k-1 million B/W clicks
a month off a Docucolor 2060 and an Docutech MP 135 respectively.
This might apply. I cut and pasted this from a previous post:

http://www.prepressforums.com/ftopict-5313.html

"We run a Xerox 2060 here, and a Docutech MP135 for black and white runs.
Both are good at what they do, for what they are. Neither has press quality for
imaging/screening or sheet to sheet registration. There are a few things to
consider in a small shop when you place either of these boxes, or both.

You'll need to have a decent amount of color work comming in the door to
really make money with a direct to color machine. If you go Xerox, make sure
to get them to throw in as much as possible at the start (RIP, free clicks,
tech support). Make sure you get a service contract for 8-5 M-F with
consumables included (toner, fuser agent). Don't skimp on your RIP.

Bindery sucks with these machines. They operate using static electricty, so there
can be a large amount of static in the job once run. Any sort of coverage that
goes over a fold, or spine, will probably crack, even when scored. With our
2060 any sort of medium coverage or more can only be run on laser friendly
or coated stocks, and the paper's coating makes a big difference. Keep in
mind that you will only be able to run forms and letterhead that will not go
through a contact printer again (ie laser printer). The toner will unfuse from
the sheet. "

I'd add that the DC 2060 is a great option for short run 4cp if you can maintain
color consistantcy from the point that you proof a piece to the time you actually
run it. Ours seems to be extremely fickle when it comes to environmental
variables, and recalibration doesn't always help. Our Digtal Color/4cp toss up
area is at about 500-750 clicks. Either way is about the same price.

[geozinger]

Originally Posted by seetomtype

We run about 30k clicks color a month, and 400k-1 million B/W clicks
a month off a Docucolor 2060 and an Docutech MP 135 respectively.
This might apply. I cut and pasted this from a previous post:

http://www.prepressforums.com/ftopict-5313.html

"We run a Xerox 2060 here, and a Docutech MP135 for black and white runs.
Both are good at what they do, for what they are. Neither has press quality for
imaging/screening or sheet to sheet registration. There are a few things to
consider in a small shop when you place either of these boxes, or both.

You'll need to have a decent amount of color work comming in the door to
really make money with a direct to color machine. If you go Xerox, make sure
to get them to throw in as much as possible at the start (RIP, free clicks,
tech support). Make sure you get a service contract for 8-5 M-F with
consumables included (toner, fuser agent). Don't skimp on your RIP.

Bindery sucks with these machines. They operate using static electricty, so there
can be a large amount of static in the job once run. Any sort of coverage that
goes over a fold, or spine, will probably crack, even when scored. With our
2060 any sort of medium coverage or more can only be run on laser friendly
or coated stocks, and the paper's coating makes a big difference. Keep in
mind that you will only be able to run forms and letterhead that will not go
through a contact printer again (ie laser printer). The toner will unfuse from
the sheet. "

I'd add that the DC 2060 is a great option for short run 4cp if you can maintain
color consistantcy from the point that you proof a piece to the time you actually
run it. Ours seems to be extremely fickle when it comes to environmental
variables, and recalibration doesn't always help. Our Digtal Color/4cp toss up
area is at about 500-750 clicks. Either way is about the same price.

We have a Docucolor 240 (yeah, management just couldn't spring for that last 10 ppm, we HAD to go with the least expensive one...) and I would have to second the vast majority of what seetomtype said here...

The only caveat that I have, is get enough machine for what you think you will encounter. The Doc240 is fast enough for most jobs, but we have racked up an incredible amount of $$'s in consumables. Well, not us because of our service agreement, but we go through a huge amount of consumables, primarily color image drums and fusers.

We sell our output as a compliment to our offset presses, however, our clients will NOT pay for poor reproduction. Any streaks, blotches etc. in the output, they will reject. With that in mind, we are putting that machine through the wringer, print quality-wise. On a scale of 1-10 were running that puppy at 9.99 of print quality.

All of this results in many, many phone calls to Xerox service. I see the Xerox tech more than I do my boss! One of the SOP's is to replace the image drums anytime there is an image quality issue, therefore I keep about 6-10 CMY drums on my floor at any time and at least 6 black image drums.

We do anywhere from 10-30K impressions a month, with about 3-5k being internal output, i.e. proofs (we have in-house design, too).

I'm pressing ownership to move up to the next level of copier/printer/whateverthehellthisthingis, mostly for two reasons: We can't duplex 12x18 cover stocks internally, and when we have heavy coverage (which is... ALWAYS!) we have so many quality issues. Which results in more phone calls, parts exchanging and slow production turnaround times.

Think very carefully about the way you intend to use the machine and get one to handle your particular workload.

[mc_hristel]

Originally Posted by geozinger

I'm pressing ownership to move up to the next level of copier/printer/whateverthehellthisthingis, mostly for two reasons: We can't duplex 12x18 cover stocks internally, and when we have heavy coverage (which is... ALWAYS!) we have so many quality issues. Which results in more phone calls, parts exchanging and slow production turnaround times.

The 2060 isn't any better when you are talking about heavy coverage. The output on ours would usualy go all blotchy after about 2000 double sided copies with full coverage. We upgraded to the 6060 and it was a little better, but we still had problems. And yes, we saw our tech more than onece a week too. Make sure you get a sevice contract.

[Jalan]

We were one of the first businesses in town with a color copier for resale purposes. We had the good old Canon 700, we graduated to the Docucolor40 which was a huge step but didn't run fast enough for our largest customer who would do tens of thousands of menus a month. We upgraded agian to our Docucolor 2045 which we still have. We've had it for 6 years or so and it's a great machine. Unfortunately it doesn't get used much anymore because the loss of that big account.
Our 2045 is run by the Feiry 2000 Rip. Registration is decent but don't expect anything spectacular. The color is consistant and does decent on most stocks but does get splotchy a bit after long runs and quicker on uncoated stocks. Service contract is an absolute must.
We were also looking at a Konica lately and it looked good but Xerox made a counter offer we couldn't refuse to keep us on their contract.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

[geozinger]

Originally Posted by mc_hristel

The 2060 isn't any better when you are talking about heavy coverage. The output on ours would usualy go all blotchy after about 2000 double sided copies with full coverage. We upgraded to the 6060 and it was a little better, but we still had problems. And yes, we saw our tech more than onece a week too. Make sure you get a sevice contract.

Personally, I'd like it if we were able to move up to a Kodak (Heidelberg) Nexpress, but we don't have the sales volume to justify it.

But it's also one h 8O ll of a different beast compared to a DC240! :wink: