Colour Laser Printer Advice Please

[paddy]

PS, does anyone know the running costs per page of these printers??

[Bill Dewison]

Problem with laser printers is that you can buy the equipment relatively cheaply but the consumables are through the roof. I bought an A3+ colour laser from QMS for about £2.5k and everything was going swimmingly til I ran out of ink. Me being a silly silly person hadn’t noticed that I wouldn’t get much change out of £600 just for a toner pack. Then there is the belt, oil, fuser unit, waste oil bottle and a pack of babywipes to keep the whole thing clean. Expensive option to run it with all branded consumables, but toner refills help the cause.

Would it not be cheaper to get them screen printed?

Cheers, Dewi

[Andrew Blackett]

Hi Paddy,

I recently bought a Minolta QMS Magicolor 2300W colour laser printer for home. Was about £500 (Inc VAT) with a free DVD player (cant be bad!)

I was unsure what the print quality would be like as its at the lower end of the price range for colour laser but even on the lower setting its always really sharp.

My boss uses a paper called “crack backed” I dont know too much about it but its A4 with adhesive and is not gloss but isnt too far off. Perhaps one of the more print aware members of the board can advise you better than me when it comes to paper.

The printer can be seen here : http://www.konicaminoltaprinters.co.uk/ … 2300W.html

I believe the magic touch sell the Minolta printers just a more sophisticated model. Ask for a sample pack from QMS, you get page costing, single colour costings and print samples, it doesnt hurt to ask!

Andy

[Brian Hays]

Andy, I have 2 friends that have recently bought Minolta Colour Lasers.

Magic Touch told them both that they were rubbish! so I am almost certain they don’t sell them. I think their lasers ar re badged Panasonic printers?

However both of my friends are more than happy with them, certainly bearing ind mind the bargain price. The only slight problem is their tendency to jam with the garment material for printing via a heat press
(sorry don’t know the name of it!)

How long did you wait for the DVD player? It took one of my mates ages & much paperwork!

[paddy]

Spot on Andy, cheers for the advice.

I know the running costs are high but let the business buy your toys is my motto.

It could be used for many applications, including a few lucrative ones that I am dreaming about.

will have a look now, more info on the crack back paper would be great

[Lorraine Buchan]

Magic touch sell a Sticky vinyl called CL Media, it’s available in white gloss or matt clear gloss or matt, silver or gold.
I think it’s about 70P a sheet of A4.

If i still had my job this would be just the thing to do on the Spaceone system – the magic touch system – A panasonic machine, which someone else said was a rebadged rebadged something or other. DO a search on spaceone you’ll find the info there.

The only thing i’ll say is what ever media your looking to use make sure the printer is supported. I used to have a QMS magicolour desklaser 2 that i ran transfer paper through, it worked ok, got jammed lots, then knackered the machine. Because i’d run a non standard paper through the machine it voided the warantee.

Don’t just look at the price as Dewi says check out the consumables too

[John Singh]

When a client ask me for some stickers to put on cars parked illegally I got them done by a printer on Crack Back.

Eventually found another printer who was able to use a laser to print on the Crack Back ‘A4’ successfully.

I think that Crack Back is something to do with the adhesives ability to stick to surfaces like glass and the longer it is left on the harder it becomes to remove. I think it is classed as permanent adhesive crack back

[Allan Weyman]

I think you will struggle getting a colour laser printer for that sort of money. I have two Ricoh machines linked to RIPs and the first oe I paid a whopping £15,000 + vat for. They have come down now a bit but are still pricy. Also look at the cost per copy they can be very high if you are tied into a service contract. I sometimes get people i the shop asking for say 500 A4 colour prints after they have tried about 10 o their home machine and used about £30 woth of ink. I tell them honestly that they would not want to pay what it costs me with the toner and ‘click’ charge and paper about 18 to 20p percopy plus vat.

I have been doing a bit of research lately and for this reason I am going to buy a third machie next week a pure printer not a copier, as you can take it from me far more important than the cost of the machine is the cost per copy. I am going to give you a bit of advise bearing in mind I have done all the research and seen the samples, and cost per copy brakdowns, and the advice is buy a Kyocera. If you shop around you can pick their new A4 colour machie (56 somethig or other) for about £1350 + vat. Now that is more than you want to pay but the good news is the cost per copy is an industry ground breaking 3.1p at 5% coverage. That will give you the edge believe me.

Allan

[Allan Weyman]

Further to Lorriane’s very good foints about knackering the machine and warranties. I bought my 1st Ricoh colour copier (£15000 + vat) off the Magic Toch stand shared by Boss Ricoh. It was always sold on the understanding I would be running funny things (transfer papers etc) through it and Boss have always to their credit replaced rollers etc when they have messed up due to tranfers papers. Incidently I stopped using Magic Touch years ago because I found the papers (at that time) caused too may problems with the rollers in the machine but I am sure they have sorted that out now and I would not want to slag them off.

Direct consummbles papers are generally very forgiving and they have a few interesting products so they may well do what you are looking for.

[red dragon]

I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when it came to getting my colour laser. Had gone in to PC World Chester to get a new C82 for subli and as usual took a look around the clearance section. Sitting there in a trolley was a QMS Magicolour 2200, marked as having no toner (all colours were in fact approx 75% full) no cable (no problem) no drivers (again no problem) best part was the price £150.00 plus fully guaranteed for 12 months. Bad part was didn’t notice the oil fuser roller was missing, but since it was not included in the list of missing parts PC World stumped up for that.

Have tried Xpress t-shirt transfer paper and it seems to double print, so tend not to use it for that at present. Also does this on thick card stock (160 gsm) then have to run a couple of pages through to clear up stray toner – anyone have any theories on this?

Have used it so far for printing small logos for applying onto glass candle holders, worked a treat. Used Avery Heavy Duty Laser Labels (polyester based) resiliant to grease, oil, water, detergent, dirt and UV. Not cheap but I obtained them originally for under bonnet stickers.

[Bill Dewison]

Lorraine, same model as mine, want to buy another? Got a 6100 that is the one that eats toner for fun, and cost 600 squids for the pleasure of it. 😆

Is the Ricoh classed as a laser printer though Allan? I thought they used a different technology? 😕

Cheers, Dewi

[Lorraine Buchan]

Interestingly enough it was the Direct consumables papers that knackered my machine.

I have since been using the magic touch papers purely because we got the space one system, the printer supplied by them the papers supplied by them, no ducking out of any problems with the machine!

[Allan Weyman]

Dewi,

I am no expert on the technologies but as far as I know they are similiar on my Ricoh machines. Controversly to Sharon’s comments I use Xpress papers most of the time and I have found them to be very good in my later Ricoh 5106. They are also reasonably priced. I think it just goes to prove that different machines work better with differnt papers.

Incidently Sharon mentioned buying or trying to buy the C82 (Epson) printer. Well I have the earlier C80 for dye-sub and I can endorse it at a very reliable piece of kit for the job. I was most suprised that Xpess stopped doing carts for this machine but carry on doing the multi colour carts for the Epson 895 etc. range, siting unreliablity problems (rubbish). I think the real reason is the C80/82 use separate carts and are very economical to run just replace one cart if one colour runs out not a multi colour one. Less profit for the supplier. Listawoods and Rotech still supply and very good products they are too.

Finally on the dyesub topic, buyer beware. I bought some cheap carts from some mob in St.Albans and they just plain and simple did not work. You can’t contact them on the phone just email and fax and I had terrible problems getting my money back in the end I had to resort to the credit card company’s help and it took months.

Allan

[Dazzel]

Try Oki, entry level at around £650.00 good results.

We owned a QMS but had major probs when needing it fixed, cost more than a new one! only simple part required, knew what it was ? but they wouldn’t sell it to me…only allowable to be fitted by an engineer…twaddle and loads money.

I think the best advice is if you purchase one, do for a maintancence contract. I Know they are expensive at the start c £250 for extra 2 years OKI, but believe me these things go wrong !

Good luck

[red dragon]

[quote="Allan Weyman"]Dewi,

Incidently Sharon mentioned buying or trying to buy the C82 (Epson) printer. Well I have the earlier C80 for dye-sub and I can endorse it at a very reliable piece of kit for the job. I was most suprised that Xpess stopped doing carts for this machine but carry on doing the multi colour carts for the Epson 895 etc. range, siting unreliablity problems (rubbish).

My reason for going for the C82 was to replace my C80 (less than 12 months old and burnt out head and cable ribbon 👿 ) I’d been using an Epson 850 for 2.5 years with no problems, other than cost, and multiple head cleans with SG inks.

[Allan Weyman]

Sharon,

I am surprised you were still in the Epson camp if you had burnt your C80 out after a year. I have just run out about a hundred pages of A4 colour on it for a pop stars fan club and it did’nt miss a beat. Ive had it over a year and it seems OK at the moment.

What inks were you using I use Rotech from Listawoods, I have heard people having clogged head problems with dyesub inks but I recon I have only cleaned the heads 1/2 a dozen times in a year. Maybe the machine did not like the inks you were running.

Allan

[red dragon]

My C80 was running Rotech inks from the start (after running the OEM through for a while). As soon as Listawood released the C80 cartridges I went out and purchased the C80. I had the first batch of problematic cartridges (when inks seemed to disappear into thin air) and had only gone through 3 sets of cartridges when the printer would no longer print anything. On investigation we found the head and ribbon damage. In all honesty I put it down to a Monday Morning/Friday afternoon build, and Listawood were very helpful. That’s why I’ve stayed with Rotech and since there aren’t a lot of options for subli printers Epson too.

These chipped cartridges are a real PITA in my opinion.

[Allan Weyman]

Sharon,

That’s interesting, the only thing I did not do is run the oem inks at all, I wonder if that uoset your machine, mixing the two types of ink may have had an adverse effect on the heads. I did read somewhere that you must run the dyesubs from day one and nothing else.

It is a bit like my big Roland CJ-70 printer it runs on pigmented inks and if I wanted to change to dye based (not dyesub although it could run dyesub, mugs don’t come that big!) I would have to buy flushing cartridges and completely purge the system.

I have found Listawoods good to deal with I must say.

Regards,

Allan