A little advice KM C652DS

Hello everyone, I've been a member for quite some time but, I mostly read or search to get any issues resolved. Now I have a quick question for those experienced with the bizhub line specifically the Bizhub C652DS , im thinking of purchasing one, and I was told that it wasnt technically a press but just an upgraded copier. I was just wondering if this was a good machine to print postcards, club flyers, ect. I currently use a Xerox Phaser, and i'd like to expand my product line. I'm a small startup but i'm loving the printing

 

Hi! Like you said, it's not a press machine but if you take good paper and doing calibration, you will have something good in hands. If you look for quality with this machine, I suggest you to have the Fiery option...it will give you more quality/performance of the machine. For sure, it is better than a Phaser machine.

 

Thanks Slyman, my pockets aren't deep enough for a real "press" but any upgrade is welcome, and once I can afford one, and if im getting business that would justify getting one i could always keep the bizhub for a backup machine. As for quality I am really picky when it comes to detail, and this unit does come with a Fiery RIP, but i've never dealt with a RIP before so im about to learn, as much as possible.

 

As I had mentioned numerous times, if paper isn't travel straight trough the machine, for printing purposes it is not a wise choice. You might (most likely will) have problems with image skew, front to back registration, bindery (good luck cutting bent stock and will be bent after going trough 2 of 90 degree turns), if you plan to commercialize on what this machine prints, let me ask you - do you have pockets deep enough to reprint and/or loose customers from low quality jobs - there is always printshop next door or around the corner or online (UPS/FedEx makes them being around the corner) Use that Credit card if you need to, get something like Docucolor 242 or Bizhub C6500. It will cost you less per page, it will print better and faster, you will have descent yield out of all the supplies including drums & fuser - just to name a few reasons to go with a little more serious machine...
Good Luck.

 

Your right UnlimittedBT, a straight through paper passage is a better choice but I got this machine in a few place and I often less problem of regist than those C6500 machine's.

Fy1boy: If you have the Fiery on it, don't forget that you will have to adjust the regist on both Fiery AND machine for better results.

 

Thanks UnlimitedBT, and Slyman for your advice. I really appreciate it, i've decided to look further into the bizhub c6500 with dual scan option, and finishers im just doing a lot of research before taking the plunge. hopefully soon i'll be able to cut back on some of my outsourcing, and printing more of those short runs myself. If anyone else has any comments about this machine im open to hear any pros and cons thanks in advance

 

I have a KM BizHub C652 that I lease with a $1 buyout to run short color runs generally of less than 1000, 1000 or higher goes to the offset, unless every page is a different original (like a color copy job). 99.5% of everything we run on it is a digital PDF (not used as a copier but as a digital press) ran through the Fiery controller features & imposing dongle is very handy. The booklet finisher is nice to have too. The problem I ran into is my KM dealer who has my service contract is double clicking me for 11x17, if you get a contract insist on 1 click per side for any size letter or tabloid, didn't know that when I entered into my agreement. I pay $0.065 per click for 8.5x11 and double that for 2 sided or 11x17, and x4 for 11x17 duplex. My agreement includes all service, parts, toners and drums (everything except staples and paper) so it is not too terrible but the double clicking me costs me a lot of my profits. And they won't give me any credits for spoilage due to image quality problems like a bad drum so watch the machines output constantly!!! Other wise the machine has been reasonably dependable, except a few certain jobs I have put on it have had image quality issues, drums seem not to last long enough to produce good quality long term meaning more frequent service calls than what the drum yields say, toner yields seem to be good overall unless you have really heavy coverage. Calibrate your machine daily with auto gradation for best image quality...I did a job the other day on it for 200 6x9 postcards 4/4 on 12 pt. C2S Carolina that looked great, rivaling near offset quality, very nice quality sellable sheet. But I did a business card job with similar heavy coverage in close to the same color but 24 up on 12x18 same stock and it looked like crap, KM said the job was beyond the machines capability, which I think is BS, just their way of saying "we don't have to...because KM corporate said so" and Nobody, I don't care who it is (Canon, Xerox, Konica Minolta, etc) can tell you what jobs are "within spec" for quality or coverage before you buy a machine, so if you plan on buying one, load up a jump drive with a lot of different test files and carry you some preferred papers with you & demo them on any machine you plan on buying...Oh, and all of them can make their demo unit print great with brand new drums, etc...so ask people who have one in the field for a while too.... The main quality issue with ours is reverse white type filling in with magenta or cyan, no 2 cards on the sheet looked exactly the same, even ones right next to each other, to me it looked like a registration issue more than image quality but I don't know for sure. But the postcard I ran had similar reverse type and as much or more trap and it looked awesome...go figure right? Hope this helps...