What digital presses should my company look at?

[Jaygames]

Curious about any input you guys may have on digital presses for my employer.  Let me give you a run down of what we have done in the past on the two Indigo's we use.

We tend to run 4/4 jobs with variable data either on one or both sides.  All of it 12x18 sheets a job could be anywhere from 20 pages to 1,250 pages.  I'm told on an average busy month without any down time, we would print an average of 17,500 sheets or about 500,000 impressions.  Our 3050 Indigo just left the building recently so we are only running on our 5000 now.

What presses do you think are as dependable as the Indigo's have been for us, considering we have experienced operators running them?  Which presses can handle this type of work load because I don't see it slowing down any?

[frailer]

We will have to look seriously ourselves at this soon; just taking in digital. Others here have a history, which I don't, but I believe some vendors are saving some releases until DRUPA this year. A2 will be particularly interesting, if you believe the goss from reps. May be a good time to buy a 'previous generation' unit.

[Stiv]

I run an iGen3 - do not get an iGen3 unless you can get it for free, lol.

Do look at the iGen4 EXP. My buds who run this printer love it. <http://www.xerox.com/digital-printing/digital-printing-press/color-printing/xerox-igen4-exp/enus.html>

It has both Matte and Gloss toner and auto color calibration. Now, the iGen is only as good as the operator and does require daily maintenance. This may be true for other printers, I don't know.

The Xerox is capable of VIPP, PPML as well as other formats. It has a couple of choices for front-ends. I have the Xerox FreeFlow. It does well but is not APPE. IDK about the newer versions of FreeFlow, they may be APPE RIPs.

You may be familiar with this site <http://www.colorprintingforum.com/digital-printing-press-forum/>. If you are not, it is another great source of opinions and info.

[Duffy]

Need to look at alot more than just impressions and up time to make a really good choice.

Where is the expected growth coming from to pay for a new machine and what will that client(s) expect?
Media types and number of changes per day?
Speed of equipment?
Do you want to go with what is out there and proven or something like the newest Xerox that is hitting the market now?
Do you need to print white?
How does it fit into your existing workflow?
Toner or inkjet (like the Fuji inkjet press or Oce webs vs IGen, Nexpress, etc...)?
Budget - looking at hundreds of thousands to a couple of million to spend?

Just a few random thoughts before just throwing names at you of equipment.

[Syphon]

Last week, we just had installed our first true digital press (Bizhub C8000), used of course.
The thing is fucking big for our little dept that it sits right up against my back (seriously).
I offered to move my workstation down the street to my apartment.

[Slappy]

Yeah, they did the same thing here with a Canon 7010VDP install. The thing vents right into where I sit with another prep guy. We ended up attaching some vents to it so it at least ducted mostly up into the ceiling. Then a Canon tech came through & said that would void our service agreement and we had to remove the vents. Asshole, you're the one who said it had hardly ANY exhaust smell, and then said we could attach the vents too!

[t-pat]

they'll tell you it will shoot live unicorns out of the delivery @ 900 unicorns per minute if it'll get you to buy it.

[gnubler]

Last week, we just had installed our first true digital press (Bizhub C8000), used of course.
The thing is fucking big for our little dept that it sits right up against my back (seriously).
I offered to move my workstation down the street to my apartment.

The smell of diesel in the morning is nice, yes?

My desk is about 10 feet from our copier. The sound is very soothing.

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

When I configured the room to make things more streamlined when I started working here, I purposely set the Sherpa 50 RIGHT behind my Manager's desk. The bitching was absolutely glorious. If you don't know, a Sherpa 50 is about the most annoying sounding machine to ever occupy Prepress. Even worse than the Scitex 340L.

[gnubler]

I've repurposed the prepress room several times. I work alone in a large dark cement hole so I can pretty much lay it out however.

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

I've repurposed the prepress room several times. I work alone in a large dark cement hole so I can pretty much lay it out however.

Moving this room around is a HUGE undertaking. Nick has to be involved. :laugh:

[gnubler]

Spider's nest of network cables?

Yes, I've taken out the company's internet a couple times. :embarrassed:

[Joe]

The last time we rearranged prepress they built a new room for us. :laugh:

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

Spider's nest of network cables?

Yes, I've taken out the company's internet a couple times. :embarrassed:

Yeah, but that's no big deal. Nick, however, IS a big deal. It's like unleashing the Kraken from Clash of the Titans. He is bitchy. Even worse than me.

[gnubler]

We knocked down walls a few months ago and then a week later decided we should have kept them up. :laugh: