Ikon CPP560 Full Review?

[American_Tactical]

First time poster to this forum, hello!

I run the art and marketing department for a mid sized company in Upstate NY that imports and sells firearms and tactical equipment to the law enforcement industry. I first came on board a little over a year ago to turn around the brand and marketing for the company, which was virtually non existent to that point. When I began working here the company was about 1 year into a 5 year lease with IKON for a CPP500 printer. Over the past year I have had what I think is a typical experience with the CPP500 - frustration, hatred, and huge revenue loss due to the machines failures and shortcomings forcing me to outsource my print work.

I had, again, a typical IKON experience trying to solve my problems with the machine. I was told by my techs and sales reps that I was "asking too much of the machine" by trying to produce full bleed (overprinted) pieces with massive toner coverage and large areas of solid color. I was hired to re brand the image of the company because of my design aesthetic - which is dark and uses heavy amounts of texture, saturated color, and very intense graphics. IKON told me I had to change my designs to suit the machine, while I have always felt it should be the other way around.

Recently, after the machine was down for 12 out of the past 14 days and the techs couldn't seem to get it running, our IKON reps came to us and have worked out a deal for us to upgrade from the CPP500 to the CPP560. They have explained all the bells and whistles to me but I am looking for solid user reviews of the 560.

We typically only print about 15,000-25,000 copies a month on our machine so I know the volume is not a problem. What is printed is like I said, very graphic heavy and features heavily saturated images and areas of solid color. Our normal paper stock is Domtar First Choice 28# but I would really like to be able to start moving into heavier presentation papers and coated stocks. I have never been able to print coated/gloss stocks on the CPP500 because it jams constantly.

Is the 560 a steady, sturdy machine? Can it handle graphic oriented jobs on a constant basis as opposed to typical business documents? How is color reproduction, registration, etc?

Any feedback would be massively appreciated! IKON is bringing in the 560 for a trial evaluation later this week but I'd love to get some insider information from people who actually use these boxes.

Thanks,
Brenton Chapman
American Tactical Imports

 

[American_Tactical]

Also if possible, does anyone have a list of paper stocks that are good to run on the 560? As I said in my previous post I am eager to start printing on some gloss stocks but I'm not sure what is the best to put through this machine. I have always used Mohawk Ultragloss on previous machines as well as Kromekote, can this box handle those kind of stocks?

 

[Jeff]

Also if possible, does anyone have a list of paper stocks that are good to run on the 560? As I said in my previous post I am eager to start printing on some gloss stocks but I'm not sure what is the best to put through this machine. I have always used Mohawk Ultragloss on previous machines as well as Kromekote, can this box handle those kind of stocks?

Ask for your sample file to be run on some gloss stocks. I was sold on all aspects of the BP 560 except to my eye on gloss stocks the finish quality looks very poor (well, very matte so the gloss looks odd on any areas that shine through.) On matte and uncoated the BP560 looked darn good and I think other than gloss it is a sturdy, well built, workhorse of a machine.

If you want to print on gloss, consider a docucolor 242/252/260 (where the tradeoff is registration which can take some trial and error to set and isn't very good on duplex; this was my choice and I absolutely love the docucolor despite the time necessary to tweak the registration on each different stock and the fact that I print and turn so as to avoid duplex registration irregularity and skew) a 700 (more money) or a canon imagepress c1+ (where the tradeoff is much slower color print speed)

 

[sdicaprio]

Did you buy it yet, I hope not...
The Bizhub 65 HC (High Chroma) will give you the vibrant color and definition you are looking for.
As for the Xerox product... Hopefully you aren't trying to mail these pieces, because of the cracking and peeling of the wax-based toner. And god-forbid you run your thumb across it or try to mail it during the summer - Uuk!

 

[Jeff]

We have 150,000 on our xerox 242 and don't have any problem mailing postcards printed on 12 pt kromekote or cutting the bleeds off. Print them in enhanced gloss mode so they do go through slower. I have seen a few that have been gouged off by the post office, but not a lot and I've seen that happen with lots of other postcards (not printed by me) too. Have also done a few runs of trifolds on both 90# gloss and 80# text and haven't had any major problem on the folds -- better than our previous canon equipment -- not as perfect as offset.

And god-forbid you run your thumb across it or try to mail it during the summer - Uuk!

???
How hot is it there? I've done rub tests rubbing another sheet against it as hard as I can and I haven't been able to make the toner come off. We run lots through our friction fed collator and don't see any rubs.

 

[sdicaprio]

Every time I have seen samples printed on wax-based Xerox I run my thumb across it with my nail and it scratches off.
How hot is it there?
Not very, we have been in a wet period for 2 months (there were 3 days of sun in June), you?

 

[Jeff]

Sorry for my sarcasm about how hot it was there -- it's a heat wave here at 75 degrees, but we're mostly much much cooler

I have a stack of kromekote we printed last night on our xerox 242 - I've tried to scratch the toner off with my fingernail and I cannot. The kromekote is pretty soft so you can see the depressions everywhere I scratched, but the toner is unaffected - it's as solid at the bottom of the dent as where I didn't scratch it with my nail. I tried near-solid toner coverage areas, light toner areas, and the fine line on the border.

I also tried rubbing/scratching the toner off with a butter knife. It doesn't come off.

I tried krinkling the sheet up, and the toner is unaffected. (my usps simulation!)

I folded it and rubbed the fold with a straightedge, no problem.



If I reverse fold the fold back upon itself though, I do see toner crack as the fold line cracks open. The outside fold could crack if the piece is opened and closed repeatedly, or the inside fold of a trifold might be an issue (though I haven't had anyone critique this yet and haven't noticed an issue myself yet. We mostly do booklets, so the inside of the cover fold is never seen.)

It also cracks a little bit if I fold across another fold, but since I don't right angle fold, I haven't encountered this real-world.

I also can scratch it off with a sharp screwdriver or an xacto knife.

 

[sdicaprio]

If you don't slow down the machine, as you said previously this will happen.
Also, if you do heavy stock the machine slows WAY down, and have you had problems duplexing heavy stock?
If you run kromekote, the max duplex weight is 220gms, are you running CS1 or 2?
How about variable data? any problems with that?
If you own one, they had you sign off on the "Document of Expectations", did they give you a copy of that? some read...

 

[Jeff]

If you don't slow down the machine, as you said previously this will happen.

One of the reasons I picked the xerox over the konica minolta was the great gloss on kromekote, so I can't imagine why I'd run with enhanced gloss mode off on kromekote. I didn't like the KM's weird too-flat toner look on gloss at all. I agree the 242 is not the machine for high-volume heavy gloss as a run of 1200 12x18 kromekote sheets takes around 6 hours in enhanced gloss mode which is a long time.

duplexing heavy stock?

The xerox won't allow you to duplex coated gloss stock from the driver. We print one side at a time of our covers each month. I have not tried duplexing heavy uncoated stock -- duplexing is not the small docucolor's strength in general (it takes a while to get the registration set by trial and error and still skew is an issue often so I just haven't had a job duplexing heavy uncoated that was long enough to make it worthwhile vs. just working and turning for a pass on the other side.)

If you run kromekote, the max duplex weight is 220gms, are you running CS1 or 2?

The Fiery driver won't allow us to duplex kromekote at all, and heavy coated only delivers to the top tray (not the stacker.)

How about variable data? any problems with that?

Address info and such is fine, but we only have the basic bustled rip and don't do anything major with variable.

Document of Expectations

Indeed. It sets the registration expectation pretty low for example. It also says to expect service every month for us with our volume of 30,000 on it, and that running heavy stock would increase maintenance requirements -- so far at 150,000 we haven't had an issue to date. We will likely have to get our first service call soon for a feed roller since it's not customer replaceable like the canon feed rubber was before. We don't run a ton of kromekote on it though -- rereading my post above I realize I gave the false impression that we ran 150,000 sheets of kromekote on ours which is not the case -- we just run covers and a few postcard jobs on kromekote, and most of our use is on 60, 70, and 80 lb text weight 11x17 and 12x18 sheets.
It's interesting because for much of our work the KM would be a good match for our use too, but we couldn't afford two machines when we opted for the xerox, one for matte and one for gloss covers, so we went for the 242 which could do both (sacrificing the easy registration and duplexing of the KM for the gloss capability of the xerox for our covers)

 

[Jeff]

P.S. I didn't mean to sell my xerox in the konica minolta forum -- it's just that the original poster mentioned "coated stocks. I have never been able to print coated/gloss stocks on the CPP500 because it jams constantly" so I thought I'd mention the xerox. When we upgraded we were really pleasantly surprised how nice it is printing on gloss for us. For 5 years we only had canon color imagerunners here with their flat matte toner and were unable to run gloss, so it's nice for a change. We were really close to buying a 560 but then changed to a docucolor because of the option to going to gloss covers.

Does the Bizhub 65 HC have a gloss option?

 

[sdicaprio]

No worries.
That is absolutely true, not only does it jam, but it puts roller marks on all the pages, if you have the finisher attached. The C500 wasn't the best, but for the products out at that time, it was ground-breaking.
Yes. The toner is really different.
But the definition in the fine detail is what's going to really set it apart from other mid-range.
It's not a copier, just a printer and the Fiery on it is supposed to be completely different rendering.
It's got 200 more pantones right out of the box and I hear it's at Pantone right now being tested. I'm die-hard KM. You know the problem the C500 had with hitting blues and cream colors? This doesn't. Forget about Reflex Blue on the C500, it was purple and you had to have a custom profile because all the shading was WAY too red.
It's worth a close look!
Susan