Older Kodak Ektaprint

Hi,

I'm thinking about getting into printing because I can get a whole setup for a really good price.

The main machine is the Kodak Ektaprint 235.

I've looked high and low on the internet and I can't find any information about it. Does anyone know about this machine? Is it a good one?

And what is a plate burner. I think it has something to do with exposing negatives or something, but I couldn't really find any info about it.

I'd love to get my hands on some books or manuals or instructive websites

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

I've never used a Kodak Ektaprint (so hopefully someone else will jump in) but is this the machine - http://www.copierconsultants.com/prod03.htm ?

The small max print size and lack of ability to integrate with a current digital workflow would seem limiting factors for many jobs for a "main machine" now, such as short run books. It looks like it's built like a tank (love the idea of air-feed paper handling) but I fear that current much smaller printers, while maybe not as rock solid, would run circles around it for most current jobs, unless you're sure you have the jobs to keep this one busy.

 

Ok, so I looked at all the equipment that was for sale. Man, there's a lot of it!

I think the Kodak copier was the one you posted. It looked older than the picture in the link. I was envisioning something with a computer screen, but there were only buttons. What would you have to do to print a run of a book? Make plates? Copy each page individually?

Other items were a couple of boxes that looked like oversize laundry machines. One was a plate burner and the other two were Kodak finishers (what do they do?).

There were also 3 printing presses with the gears and rollers and all. And there was one big scary looking hydraulic book cutter. There were other accessories like conveyor belts, a laminator, a binder, book drill, chemicals and inks, darkroom camera, etc.

I guess I'm not sure I'd want to get these things even though the price for the lot is $2800 because I'm afraid it would take too long/be too expensive to do short runs.

I guess reselling some of it might be a good idea, but again, I have no idea what it is currently worth.

 

I would have to say that the technical parameters listed above are reasonably accurate but I advise against a purchase of any Kodak Ektaprint unit at this late date. I assisted in teaching the repair of this unit for new break-in technicians at the Rochester, NY based Marketing and Educational Center and although it was a competitive unit in the late 1980s it HAS to be considered extremely obsolete at this point in time. Other units have far surpassed this one for reliability, functionality and efficiency, to wit:

1. The air paper handling features that was previously mentioned in this forum has drawbacks. The 225 and 235 has a propensity for multiple sheet feeding from the paper supplies, especially with 3-hole punch paper stock which I believe is attributable to this technology. This problem disrupts the sheet-feed counting that the machine executes and this can result in major headaches during duplex-sided copying. The addition of a multiple-sheet-feed sensor retrofit into the registration assembly (station #1) confirms that Kodak was aware of this ongoing problem with the unit. The science of setting up the paper drawer adjustments was emphasized repetitively but this discipline and the special tools issued to perform these adjustments yielded only marginal performance improvements.

2. Another weakness (I believe) is its ability to transfer toner from the image film to the fed sheet at the higher main drive speed of the 235. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that the EK 100-235 series units do not recycle excess toner vacuumed from the imaging cycle and only deposits this "waste" toner into a catch bottle to be discarded during service calls. A significant amount of the cash that the customer spends for the purchase of toner ultimately gets loaded into a plastic bag to be discarded during routine service. The equally obsolete Ektaprint 250 and 300 does recycle this "waste" toner for re-use. However, too much toner that should have been transferred to the fed sheet was only being swept and vacuumed into this collection container during the cycle.

3. These units have NO “Green-Features” and are energy hogs. Due to the toner and energy use, owning one of these units may put you at a competitive disadvantage. Upon my departure in the early 1990s these units (100-235) were still not networkable.

4. I have no knowledge of the “Plate” issues that were bought up.

5. There is then the question of high quality service availability. In Kodak's heyday, the quality of service provided by their own technicians was (I'll try to be fair when I say this) inconsistent. Eastman Kodak purged their money loosing copy products division in the mid 1990s, selling service and sales sectors to Danka and later selling the manufacturing operations to Heidelberg. But previously to these sales, Eastman Kodak did everything they could to prevent third party service from getting a foothold in what was considered "their repair market". Restricting the availability of repair parts to their own poorly performing Customer Equipment Service Division, buying used machines in an effort to restrict the availability of used repair parts, and selling new repair parts to customers only if they agreed not to use third party service. This created federal antitrust considerations and a very hostile repair market for these units. The performance of CESD was an effect, not the cause for Kodak's failure in this market. Review the Supreme Court case "Image Technical Services (et-al) Vs Eastman Kodak Company" for corroboration.

Kodak's general business plan was to place and hold as many people in a cage as they could. Even going so far as to task their service technicians to gather intelligence as to which customers were using Kodak toner and which customers chose to use Nashua toner (as if we didn't have enough to do).

Customers and service technicians were equally caged, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The behavior of EK during this tumultuous period should serve as a textbook example of how NOT to manage a complex maintenance operation.

Ultimately the CEO was terminated for his "inability to cut costs fast enough". In my opinion this was window dressing, the environment that EK was trying to cultivate was doomed from the start, their business model was failing and they needed a scape-goat.

It is critically important for the customer to appreciate that they are not buying a copier, but they are buying a function and that those machines do not function very long without high-quality disciplined service. We were the ones that kept those machines at customer sites for as long as we did. Copy Products CESD is now history so if any of these units remain in service, I have no idea how they are being repaired or how repair parts are being procured.

The choice is yours but be forewarned. Do you really want to own one of these units?

 

Thanks

Thanks for your detailed response. In the end I decided not to purchase the setup. It just looked too old and there was so much of it.

It's sad that a company would follow such business practices.

 

A wise decision for sure.

Since this subject came up, as a public service, I felt it advantageous to mention this extinct culture in cursory detail. We can move forward when we analyze and avoid the mistakes of the past and I was one of the ones in the belly of the beast capable of articulating these details. Unfortunately, the majority of the field service staff never had the time to get their head out from under the hood of one of these machines long enough to see what was going on behind the scenes.

However, I remain confident that variations of those business practices exist to this very day and that there are those who continually search for opportunities to exploit field repair markets in this manner. It's important for customers to be wary of them. Read and understand your contracts before you sign them. Ask questions if you don't understand. Our service contract summary was in a 1.5" thick loose-leaf binder, written with the help of legions of Kodak's legal staff and printed double sided.

I didn't mention the Chris (King Clarity) Steffen situation in Kodak Office because it had little if anything to do with public service. But if you want a good laugh, try researching this as it's all part of the public record. In a nutshell and in my opinion, he accomplished exponentially more in EK resigning after an eleven week tenure, than would have if he had a full career there. I was in the MEC cafeteria (in Rochester) when I heard of his resignation on the closed circuit televisions there. It was all over the locally televised news.
I pumped my fist because I knew that the house of cards would shortly tumble.

As far as I am concerned, I owe him a beer. I am also sure that he's doing very well for himself now and so am I.