Anyone have any recommendations for a decent inkjet printer for envelopes?
The one we have now is ancient and dying a slow death. The interface is horrible, we're restricted to using only one font, courier, and have to print DOS from the sorting software to the printer.
It would be great to have one that would print from PDFs so fonts are not an issue.
We got one of these recently. The girls that do that kind of work say it is great. And they do a lot more than just envelopes. We did not get the platemaker option though.
Xante EN/PRESS (https://www.xante.com/enpress/)
We have a Xante too, not sure which model, I always hear good things about it.
It looks a lot like an Impressia. I didn't read enough to know they had engineered it to print with ink instead of toner.
Oh, one thing I recently found out about the Enterprise feeder on these models. We had a problem with both the ingoing and outgoing ones recently; it turned out to be a simple fix on both. What surprised me and the repair man, who was recommended by Xante, called Xante and asked about parts if he needed them, and they told him that after the warranty is over, they don't sell parts, just new units. That's something to keep in mind.
Quote from: Joe on March 21, 2019, 08:24:23 AMWe got one of these recently. The girls that do that kind of work say it is great. And they do a lot more than just envelopes. We did not get the platemaker option though.
Xante EN/PRESS (https://www.xante.com/enpress/)
Geez Joe, you'all got girls for everything! We need some girls here!
Xante here too, it's a work horse.
Might want to check into it, ours doesn't have click charges
we bought the machine, the supplies are a bit pricey, but no click charges
Okay, sounds like Xante is the way to go! Thanks.
We also have the Xante Impressia. It's finicky, but we've put over half a million envelopes through it in 2 years, so maybe it's not built for that kind of use.
You might check out Oki models also. They come with feeders or you can get third party feeders like the Straight Shooter. Their color seems a little less finicky than Xante's in my experience, although the Xante iQueue software gives you many more options like numbering, bar codes, etc.
we have an Oki C941e, prints 4 color plus white ink, with the Straight Shooter feeder and exit modules.
works like a champ.
Quote from: david on March 21, 2019, 12:16:31 PMwe have an Oki C941e, prints 4 color plus white ink, with the Straight Shooter feeder and exit modules.
works like a champ.
What's the speed like? We've got an aging Presstek DI, it's becoming more trouble to get setup imo for short runs & consumables are expensive as shit. 4c envelopes are really the only thing it's used for any more.
Haven't actually put a clock on it, but I've done 500 envelopes, print 2 sides, in less than 30 min.
I had a rebranded Oki, older model, that would run through 1000 envelopes in about 40 minutes. When a part was replaced, it suddenly printed much faster. Faster than the Impressia we got later, although I never timed it, but the Impressia does 1000 in 25 to 30 minutes.
As far as consumables cost, I have read that Oki's prices were less than the those for the older Impressia model, although I don't know about the newer model.
One tip if you've never had one of these machines: if a sales puke or trainer tells you you can run envelopes on a lighter setting than normal to run faster, don't fall for that. We lost a lot of envelopes to crooked prints running them that way.
We print envelopes on our Versant 2100. Handles envelopes incredibly well and rarely ever have a jam. Colours look great.
Might be worth looking at whatever digital press you have and see if it is capable of running envelopes through it. For us it was an added bonus with the Versant, we did not buy it to print envelopes but when we need to do full colour envelopes it handles them like a dream.