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5th Color

Started by Tracy, April 20, 2021, 08:27:07 AM

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Tracy

So we got a Ricoh with a 5th color it can do clear, white and I think metallic not sure yet
I was invited to sit in the training tomorrow, I know I want to ask questions about how to
prepare the files and what to call the 5th color etc.. any other questions I should ask?


David

yes, the first question, does it actually work?
How do files get to the printer?
Do you "print" or do you drop into a hot folder?
Color Management?

It is always a good thing to invite the prepress person to the training, otherwise they will never be able to print their files. LOL

We had a OKI C941 in here for testing, it had white and "silver". The silver looked like crap, it wasn't metallic, it was just a shade of gray. Sent it back.

We have the Indigo with white, clear and silver.
Never could get the clear to work right.
The white and silver work great, both go to different ques based on the colors.

We also have a Mimaki printer with white and clear, this printer is not network compatible, all files have to be put on a USB drive to transfer to the printer. Kinda sad, knowing this is 2021 and they built it this way. Weird.


Lucky you!
have fun!

:drunk3:
Prepress guy - Retired - Working from home
Livin' la Vida Loca

Tracy

Thanks David!
I'm wondering if we have just the clear, which seems to really work good
and 1 metallic color oh and the white which is interesting to me!

David

The white is really nice, but you have to watch out for what color the white actually is.
The white on the OKI is white-white, the white on the Indigo is a blue-white, the OCE has a lite blue-white in it.

A lot of printers don't get the white option or the clear due to the expense.

We get a lot of envelope business due to the fact we can do white on them, whereas a lot of the printers in my area don't have the white option.

Prepress guy - Retired - Working from home
Livin' la Vida Loca

Tracy

hmm good point about the price!

born2print

Our Indigo is old... no white option, but we get around that by printing the white (like on the little Ryobi), then running the 4/c digital over it, or actually vica-versa.
How will I laugh tomorrow...
when I can't even smile today?

Tracy

hey! that's a good idea!

swampymarsh

Will one hit of white be enough on say black card? Can you lay down more than 100% density of white in a single pass? Is it safe or possible to feed the white print back through a second time for another hit? If it is OK to do so, how tight will the registration be?

Is the white a consumable cost or a click charge model? I'm guessing a consumable, even if the CMYK are click based.

How will you accurately estimate/cost if this is a consumable model?

I'm guessing that you will need to have spot colours setup in your files for the 5th station. Does the RIP/DFE handle the raster and vector spot colours the same (i.e. no visible difference to the output)? Or does it only support spot colour vector/text data?

scottrsimons

Yeah the clear on the Indigo is not that great. We had dimensional on a Nexpress, which was actually really good. But our service tech wasn't that good and the press started to suffer, and we got rid of it. Now we have two Indigos. Both with clear (sux), white and silver  (both pretty cool for right applications).
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!" - Homer J. Simpson

DHG

We have a Ricoh Pro C7100x with the 5th color unit that I run. We print a lot with the white and clear and the results are great. We also have neon yellow and pink although in the 2 + years we have had the machine I've yet to print using those colors. All the 5th colors came with the machine. The metallics are still not available as far as I know. I would ask for a date when they will be available.

File setup for the 5th colors is very easy. Changing out the 5th color is easy too, but a little time consuming.  Takes me about 15-20 minutes.

Tracy

#10
Hey! I feel more informed-I am armed with questions
Thanks guys!

DHG I think our Ricoh is the same but SX?

DPSprint

we also have the indigo here, and the white gets used a fair bit, often hit more than once to get the vibrance up a bit.

and to make it very interesting we are getting a new ricoh installed this week, and will be getting the silver and gold options when they are available (july apparently).
The company that has merged with us currently has a xerox and the gold on that is quite good, but the ricoh is going to replace that... and I get to join the others with the training as i used to run a ricoh at a previous company, should be fun relearning it again and give me another skill

Tracy

Hey cool, I haven't worked with Xerox in awhile but I remember liking them.
I'm getting use to the Ricoh, didn't like it at first, this is our 2nd color copier
Ricoh 1 doesn't have the 5th color

DigiCorn

Quote from: Tracy on April 22, 2021, 08:24:33 AM
Hey cool, I haven't worked with Xerox in awhile but I remember liking them.
I'm getting use to the Ricoh, didn't like it at first, this is our 2nd color copier
Ricoh 1 doesn't have the 5th color
<ahem> digital press, plz :rolleyes:
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Tracy