Hi all, I have been looking in to which digital printer to buy. This has been an impossible question with alot of difficulty to understand and no half decent answer given. to the point the question is this: xerox 242 = approximate market value $7000 toshiba estudio, xerox docucolour 12 or other like for like digital printer = $200 one fact : a local printer doing printing using a xerox docucolor 12. why the huge price difference and why bother paying $7000 when you could do everything on a $200 machine?? I want to print leaflets, stationary, business cards approximately 5000 - 10'000 in quantity a month. Please give me reasons to buy or not to buy so i understand. I know economy is better on a high value machine but by how much?? is the extra cost worth it?? just trying to make sense as at the moment I just cant understand. also what is the best under $400 digital printer to buy?? Thank you in advance for your help
I'll take a quick stab at this. Back in 2002 I started with a pair of small canon printers where I had to buy all durables and consumables and which had only warranty support but not really "service". In 2003 we actually signed a lease for a Doc 12 and fiery RIP. (it ended up it was never delivered and we went with canon that year, but the Docucolor 12 was a printer I wanted and had an outstanding quality for the time.) Then we went with service supported canons and in 2008 got a xerox Docucolor 242, OHCF, Finisher, Rip, and pay around around $800/month plus usage and are very happy with that decision. For me, it comes down to: * what volume are you going to put on the machine (and is there profit potential at times if you have more capacity) * what time frame do you need to turn around your jobs in * how critical is uptime and specifically print quality of the machine * do you have spare time or what value do you put on your own time If your volume is low, the cost of the machine itself figures highly into your cost per print. But if you plan to do 500,000 or a million prints or more, the initial or lease cost of the machine becomes a smaller amount to the cost of durables and consumables or parts that need to be replaced. With the docucolor 12 to docucolor 242 you're looking at the difference between 12 and 40 pages per minute in color for example for basic productivity. You could get multiple docucolor 12s which can have certain advantages (I do like having more than one of the same printer so you can troubleshoot using the pair) but then you also have to maintain multiple smaller/slower printers which can take more time. You also have to look at your cost (and time) to service the printers and the cost of consumables. I've found the 242 for example to date to be very good on service needs. Under $4000 in my view is a gambling game. Either you are buying a small machine which isn't really supported to print high volumes, or you are buying a used machine without warranty so you may get lucky and get a $40,000 machine that has been well maintained for a fraction of the cost or you may get a machine where the first year you put more money (and time) into parts replacement and troubleshooting that you paid to purchase and move the machine itself. It's somewhat easy to compare consumables like toner (the big question is what coverage your work will average out). Durables are a bit trickier as it depends on the level of quality you wish to maintain. Can you accept a small drum streak or a belt that is getting older, or do you demand higher quality from the prints and need to replace more frequently. With the older machine there were will be odd parts (e.g. rollers part of feed assemblies) that may cost hundreds to replace plus the time to troubleshoot and locate. If you have spare time to keep an old (basically free) machine going you can make a few dollars printing low coverage items. If you have the work to warrant a better machine, you might take advantage of going for a higher volume of work with a newer, faster, cheaper-per-print (including your time to maintain) machine.
Thanx for your reply. So I take it any digital printer will do for what I want providing it is reasonable speed for the price and reasonable economy. I have seen some small newer machines as well which have reasonable print speeds but are low cost. They are the HP Laserjet 4200n printer, SAMSUNG colour laser printer - mod CLP500 & Hewlett Packard, Model: 5550DTN. I assume from what you said the suitable printer needs to be based on: speed economy Replaceable parts Reliabity and volume verses initial equipment cost. as high volume works out on economy other things to look out for would be finishing equipment and the ability to print on to thick materials and larger sizes e.g sra3. Is there a convenient website which I can compare new and old digital printers to find one for my needs?? also are there printers out there with refillable ink so you can reuse the toners? Thank you
Not counting the cost of the machine itself or paper, you will find your cost per print varies between 5 and 50 cents per print for an 11x17/12x18 size depending on the machine you go with. You won't be able to get parts for the very small printers so you might get 6 to 24 months out of them under high-volume printing before quality issues develop that requires replacement or relegating them to a lower-quality role. There is 3rd party refillable toner for many machines; some require chips to be reset/changed and some you can simply fill up. Smaller machines have integrated toner and drum modules so it works best if you don't need the highest quality as the drums usually start to show artifacts after one to three refills. Larger machines have drums separate from the toner cartridges. It's also useful for economy if the drums are interchangeable so you can for example put a drum with a streak in the yellow position where it is less noticable than cyan or magenta. Refilling though takes your time and also introduces a quality control variability - in the case of integrated toner/drum cartridges, you're using cleaning blades, drums, etc. beyond their rated life and the toner may or may not be 100% the quality/tonality of the original. I refilled hundreds of cartridges from 2002 to 2004 for a pair of ic2100s that we put ~500,000 11x17 prints on, but I much prefer my workflow now with a service contract printer so I don't have to hassle all that.
Thanx again. I think the best way to do this is to pick a budget and see what I can get for it. there are so many printers out there that it is overwhelming. Could you possibly recommend me any printers under $1500? which is economical and does a minimum of 20 ppm in colour and good if it has a3 but not important? Thanx again
Are you in a location that doesn't have existing quick printers and copy shop operations? With only a $1500 budget I don't think you'll get a solid and competent enough machine to be able to make this a going business. You might consider saving up a bit doing design work until you can afford a more servicable machine with a lower cost to operate. For business cards, you will really want a business card slitter. That alone will cost a few thousand dollars. For brochures, you will want a folder. That will cost a couple thousand. For full bleed, you will need a cutter. For stationary, be aware that laser prints may come off if customers run them through a black and white copier which has a harder and hotter fuser than the color laser printers and color copiers.
