C14000 and C12000 Problems

[Mark Stephens]

Hi,
I can only talk for the C12000 and the previous 1085.
When the C12000 is in good working condition (IE a new model,you really have to make sure its not an older model), it prints well and stable and a good colour,however if youre printing the same set of colours on a regular basis I dont beleive it is acheivable to keep these colours precise,to be honest i'd be surprised if any midrange machine can do it.
When they mention this zero point colour standard that you can keep going back to its nonesense
In my experience the colour consistency depends on a lot of settings and mainly the condition and life of internal replaceable parts.
For instance we had a brand new machine not long ago a c12000 to replace the old one, after a few days we printed a sample with a lot of fine tints ,a week later when the job was passed we including the engineer couldnt match it exactly.
We are talking about fine tints and you wouldnt notice so much on pictures and on general work it prints very well,the IQ unit works ok and keeps fit to a certain standard,its not perfect but certainly much better than without one.
I guess were quite fussy as were litho based but overall when the machine is working as it should do its good.

 

[ScottCo]

We also had two of the KM models C-6085. Upgraded to one 12000 and one 14000. Image placement is the same. Color stability is actually not as good as the 6085 but KM is working hard to improve this. Around my area many printers are switching to the HP Indigo 12000. These print shops seem to always purchase additional machines or move up to the Indigo 25000, 50000 or the 100000. This tells me it must be a decent machine. Obtaining color accuracy and maintaining color consistency over time has always been a challenge for CMYK devices. I'm not sure a CMYK electrostatic imaging device was even designed to achieve this. Many times we simple expect too much from our machines. Maybe we need to stop reading the sales brochures and start talking to each other more. I hope others reply to your post and offer you better advice.

 

[Mark Stephens]

Hi Scottco,
I totaly agree with your reply and it is all about sharing information but when the salesmen sit in front of you guaranteeing fit tolerences within a few mm and colour consistency you can get misled on the first and even second occaisions,we certainly did as litho printers when we bought our first digital machine.
We now know better and as you said forums like this ensure you get the truth from users with actual experience not from some show room.
As for indigo they are great but with price tags of £800,000 and up they are in a different bracket,personally i'd like to see inkjet technology in SRA3 at a more afforable price,heating up paper to the tempratures that go on in the current digital machinery can't be the way forward.

 

[dlannan701]

Wow, it sounds like some of the same issues I am having with our new C7090. I have had the color shift three times within the same batch of 500 sheets. If my boss decides to upgrade I hope he considers all the problems the newer models seem to be having. Someone responded to my post about it and it turns out we may have a less robust Fiery than we need for variable data. Wonder if that's the same with the color issues?

 

[ScottCo]

Many of the bigger problems with the KM 12000 and the KM 14000 have been resolved through many hardware and firmware upgrades. Yes, we also had to upgrade to the latest and greatest Fiery server. Remember in addition to the Fiery hardware upgrade you will also need to ensure it has the latest firmware installed on that server as well. I hope you find some solutions - sooner than later. Cheers

 

[matthias76]

Late response........we print very special format most 25x65cm on this narrow format we got some streak come and go in print direction. KM spend alot time to fix this. Seems that this never be fixed.....only way to print these in slow print speed.
Since we reduce the speed and all those updates in hard and software this has got an rock solid machine. Color shift is good now and sometimes the machine run from maintenance to maintenance.