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Recommendations for High Volume Color Laser Printers? 96

Posted by Cliff from the churning-out-pages-at-an-incredible-rate dept.
dughutch asks: "My church currently uses a small business color laser printer (Minolta 2200), but alas, it can not handle the load of our growing congregation. We are looking at buying a higher volume color laser printer and I wanted to ask the Slashdot readers for any and all information on possible solutions relating to this question, including, but not limited to: cost, volume, repairs, and outsourcing?"
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Recommendations for High Volume Color Laser Printers? More

Recommendations for High Volume Color Laser Printers?

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  • Why ask Slashdot? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why dont you send a prayer and god will give you advice - or even a color laser printer!

    *grin*
    • Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV.
      Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color laser printer.
      Oh Lord, won't you buy me a mercedes benz.
      • Hey, come on. This isn't a troll. Its a Janis Joplin song!

        http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/janisjoplin/merce de sbenz.html

        Geesh, even the guy who I replied to was more of a troll than this. Oh-well. All you Non-Janis lovin' folks. Go learn ya some real music.
  • Why not inkjet? Epson puts out a pretty good one. Also, would it be better to go to places like Kinko's with a single color master? IIRC, color laser printers simply aren't cheap, and if it's a growing congregation, you can maybe get one on an NPO program, but again, *color laser*?
    • Ack, ink jets and high volume do not mix.

      Unless ofcourse you don't mind paying through the nose for ink.
    • -My church currently uses a small business color laser printer (Minolta 2200), but alas, it can not handle the load of our growing congregation.

      It sounds like your printer -almost- handles the load but falls just a little short. Simple - add another identical printer and have both printers service the same print queue. You are already experienced with that particular printer, no need to modify anything on the client side, you already have a stock of toner cartridges.

      Actually I am thinking about the way

  • You're barking up the wrong tree (Score:3, Interesting)

    by karrde ( 853 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @04:00PM (#6118126) Homepage Journal
    High volume Color Laser printers don't exist. They are instead called Networked Color Copiers. But forget cheap, you're looking at $16K entry, that will get you around 20ppm.

    • Re:You're barking up the wrong tree (Score:5, Informative)

      by ComputerSlicer23 ( 516509 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @04:12PM (#6118247)
      Actually, the HP 4500 runs around $2K, and does 4ppm in full color, it does 16ppm in black and white. The toner's not too incredibly high priced. There is an HP 8500 if I recall correctly that prints even faster. Bought one for Mom a couple of years ago, she does desktop publishing as a business. It holds up well, and other then the inability to print the grey when printing a color document, it's great. In a B/W, it does grey just fine, but in color, it mixes in blue, so all greys have a blue tinge.

      Remember, high volume, is not only that it prints fast. High volume is that it can print a lot of papers without breaking down. We've got several HP's at work that print relatively quickly, but if you print more then say 40K pages a month to them, they breakdown and need a lot of tender loving care to get them to run again. We have an nearly identical printer that prints at the same pages per minute rate, but it's rated to print 150K pages a month.

      If he needs something that can print 10,000 pages without a break, that's different then he needs 86,400 pages to be printed in a day.

      Kirby

      • Yes you're correct about the 4500 series. I'm sitting next to a 4550 that's a work horse. We do roughly 2000 pages per month and replace the color cartridges about once a year and Black about twice that.

        The only thing I would say about it is that if it isn't used continuously it goes into a cool down cycle that makes waiting for the warm-up on first document of the day tedious.

        • Similar experiences with a HP 8550 here. First page takes forever to get out, even without going into the powersaving/cooldown/warmup modes. But once it gets going, it cranks along pretty good. It sucks at printing envelopes though, gotta feed them one at a time. We've had no major issues except for having to change the fuser at $300 or so.

          I'd also echo the comments above to look into a print house to do any of your medium and large volume printing. You should find your per-page costs lower than printing

          • The municipal utility I work for uses a 8550 and we have very similar experiences. It is a good solid printer. Capable of 11x17, built-in duplexer, built-in nic and lpd, and 2500 sheet tray (I realize that some of those things are options, but they all are worth it and don't add too much to the price at initial purchase. Enveolpes even print fine through the manual feed tray
            Also there is good support from HP for the 8550 for open source printing systems. It is also capable of directly printing pdf's
        • Here's another vote for the 4550, though it is not the fastest color laser on the market because it uses a 4 pass process to make color, the faster ones have a single pass color process. The tradeoff from what I've seen is reliability, Cisco has a bunch of 4500 and 4550's and I don't think I heard of any of them needing major service in 2.5 years there.
      • the HP 4600DN is roughly $3500 (Canadian), gets the same speed, and doesn't have the blue problem. We've yet to have a maintenance problem other than running out of toner, and we do tons of CD labels and leaflets every month. We've been useing it for about 5 months.

        As a bonus, it duplexes, so you don't have to re-load your bulletins to do the other side.
      • I see the blue-in-grey problem with our Canon 1000's at work. Yes, we have several $80K color copier/printers, and the quality elicits tears of joy. They're so fast, they could print the counterfeit money to pay for themselves in ten minutes. However, the blue-in-grey problem would again surface....
      • the 4500 is obsolete - i've got a 4600 on my desk - it was $2200 for the 4600DN (duplexer and Network) and it's rated for 20something color pages a minute - does about half that in real life. Great printer - highly reccomend it.
    • You could be wrong. I had experience with HP 5500 hdn, it runs around 4K, if I am not mistaken. (I am not from states, prices are diferent here). When we had it for testing it could print arounf 14-15 ppm color, and around 17 b/w.
      Add to that 10gigs of HDD inside standard for that model, and not a bad idea for any network printer.

      5500 can also print on A3 sized papers, duplex.

      OTOH, print quality is better on Epson, but comparable model is much more expensive if you go with that.

    • Check out the Xerox Phaser 7300. It will print 26PPM, it handles 11 x 17/A3. The color management is good (not quite as good as the 7700).

      The price? Nicely configured at $4200 (starts at $3500).

      I have seen the output from the 7300/7700/6200, and it is very impressive. Xerox is really leading the pack in desktop laser color printing right now.

  • ah, crap (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I thought this thread was gonna be COOL

    then I saw the word "Printer" on the end. :-(

  • Can you define "high volume" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ip_vjl ( 410654 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @04:05PM (#6118171) Homepage
    Can you give a better definition of what you mean by high volume.

    500 flyers for the sunday service each week
    or
    10,000 11x17 double-sided brochures every week.

    Do you have any special requirements?
    Must print on paper type ______.
    Must handle these sizes?
    Doublesided printing in single pass?
    Do you care: postscript/PCL?

    A little more info would be helpful.

    • Re:Can you define "high volume" (Score:4, Interesting)

      by override11 ( 516715 ) <cpeterson@gts.gaineycorp.com> on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @04:53PM (#6118644) Homepage
      And why purchase if you have such high volumes? Look around for a leasing company. We use a local company, and have a Canon Imagerunner 8500 (85 ppm) and have put over 1.5 million copies through it in the 7 months we have had it. Its not color, but the concept is the same. Look for a local leasing company and see if you can get a non-profit discount, our cost per copy is about $.02 per printed page, and that includes toner and all breakdowns and on-site service. :)

  • Professional Printers? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Patman ( 32745 ) <[pmgeahan-slashd ... [thepatcave.org]> on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @04:07PM (#6118201) Homepage
    If you're printing a lot of stuff that isn't time-sensitive(i.e., you don't need it RIGHT THIS SECOND), why don't you go with a professional printing house?

    I think you'd probably have a lot less hassle with that route than with trying to find, purchase, install and support a color laser printer.

  • Phaser/Xerox (Score:3, Informative)

    by SLot ( 82781 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @04:23PM (#6118341) Homepage Journal
    I've got an older 750N, works like a champ, cost $1400 - the toner cartridges are a bit pricey (250 each) but they last a pretty good while. Has linux support, internet printing etc.

    Here [xerox.com] is what they currently have on sale.
    • I've got the Phaser 8200 that I use for producing our short-run marketing materials.

      It's not really a laser printer (in that it doesn't use toner). It uses a solid ink technology - think 'melting large crayons.'

      The quality is pretty good, but it depends on what you want to do. The unit we got has network printing built in, and will do doublesided printing automatically.

      It is fairly cheap to operate. (you can get cheaper ink sticks at www.inktechnologies.com) and has a decent quality output. It doesn't do
    • Go to freecolorprinter.com [freecolorprinter.com]. This is Xerox's program whereby you can apply for a FREE color printer (typically solid ink, but they list laser/toner printers, too). The catch is that you have print a minimum number of pages per month and commit to buy all your consumables from the freecolorprinter website for a period of three years.

      It's kind of like a lease: any failures they pay for (you pay for wear parts). After three years, the printer is yours to do with what you will at no cost to you. Use it for a do

      • Go to freecolorprinter.com. This is Xerox's program whereby you can apply for a FREE color printer (typically solid ink, but they list laser/toner printers, too). The catch is that you have print a minimum number of pages per month and commit to buy all your consumables from the freecolorprinter website for a period of three years.

        I do a fair bit of work with a place that has one of these, the Tektronix Phaser 850DP. I don't know that it's the best deal.

        For one thing, if you don't make your commitmen

  • I would suggest to go see a professional. Probably cheaper and less hassel

  • Print in black and white (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @04:37PM (#6118472)
    And show good stewardship of your congregation's money. If you have so much money that you *need* to spend it on something, open a soup kitchen.

    • Re:Print in black and white (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Unfortunately, these days, black and white just doesn't cut it. Our sight & sound generation is bombarded constantly with so much high-end, flashy media, that it's impossible to keep up if you "just print in black & white." Why don't the major media corporations with millions to spend on glossy brochures open up soup kitchens and homeless shelters? Answer: That doesn't get you paying customers. It applies here as well.
  • ...would probably be about 200 offshore indian children with crayons working for cheap in an old warehouse.
    Outsource, outsource

  • FreeColorPrinters (Score:5, Informative)

    by joncarwash ( 600744 ) <jonathanwhodges@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @05:03PM (#6118731) Homepage

    Check out the following website:
    FreeColorPrinters [freecolorprinters.com]

    The fraternity that I am in has been using this service for the past 3 years (that is how long the contract lasts); the printer lease runs out in a week (the printer is yours to keep after the lease expires). We have a Phaser 850DP, and I believe the current model is a Phaser 8200, which are both color wax transfer printers - check out this link for the specs:
    Phaser 8200 Specs [freecolorprinters.com]

    The only thing you have to do is print the quota (if some guys living in a dorm can do it, I am sure you can as well), and buy your ink from them (all black ink is free; color ink is kind of expensive, but it is worth it for the free printer). Also included is an on-site service agreement for the length of the 3 year lease.

    I would definitely recommend this service, especially for small organizations. Good luck with finding one for the church!

    • ...also, we have printed over 115,000 pages and it's still running great. It has only needed servicing twice over the past 3 years, and it was taken care of next-day without much hassle at all. The technicians say that these printers get well over 300,000 pages before they begin to die.

    • I looked into this program, you need to determine how much printing you're going to do as you have to commit to a certain amount of printing you'll do (ink you'll buy).

      The Xerox ink is expensive, so you DO pay for the printer that way. If you fall below the quota, they charge you $100/mo. At that rate, you'd pay for the printer in about 2 years anyway.

      There is cheaper ink [inktechnologies.com] but you can't use it if you sign up for this program. Since you have to send in the monthly reports from the printer, you can't buy jus

      • This is all true, and we definitely second-guessed our decision since the ink is so expensive. In the end, though, it was a good decision since we did print our quota (the printer automatically sends the reports via email), and we took advantage of the service agreement (which really makes the plan worth it).

        The service agreement to go along with the printer (if buying stand-alone) costs about $650 from Xerox, and only lasts one year. The plan that comes with this lasts 3 years and is on-site, which is

  • Get a good service contract (Score:3, Informative)

    by zaad ( 255863 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @05:22PM (#6118883)
    I don't know what you mean when you say high volume, but...

    If you're not having a speed of printing issue, but are having trouble with the printer jamming, what you should look into is getting a good service contract. No matter what kind of "high volume" printer you get, excessive printing will wear down the rollers and cause a lot of paper dust to accumulate. The only way to keep them going is by cleaning them and replacing the rollers when they wear out.

    I worked at a place that had 12 printer on a single floor that printed between 5,000 to 10,000 pages per printer per month. They were all great printers, but on average needed to be serviced ever six to eight weeks to keep working.

    I'd recommend getting an additional printer, and getting a service contract on both printers when one needs to be serviced.

  • GCC Printers (Score:3, Informative)

    by DeadSea ( 69598 ) * on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @05:46PM (#6119092) Homepage Journal
    I worked for the company that developed this puppy. It's quite powerful and has great looking output.

    GCC Printers Elite Color 16 DN [gccprinters.com] $2099

    • 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution
    • 16 pages per minute
    • 256 MB RAM
    • Max print area: 8.3" x 13.84"
    • Letter/A4, Legal, Executive, Envelope
    • 500-sheet Universal Tray
    • PostScript 3 and PCL5c
    • 136 built-in PostScript fonts/45 built-in PCL fonts
    • Ethernet 10/100BaseT, Bi-directional Parallel, USB 2.0
    • TCP/IP

    That should be plenty for a church.

  • HP Color Laserjet 4500... (Score:5, Informative)

    by SlashChick ( 544252 ) <erica@eric[ ]iz ['a.b' in gap]> on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @05:54PM (#6119163) Homepage Journal
    It seems that a lot of people replying to this thread haven't checked out color laser prices in the past couple of years. It used to be that the HP 4500 series was over $2000. However, that's no longer the case.

    I picked up an HP Color Laserjet 4500 about a year ago for $600. This awesome printer had less than 10,000 pages on it. One $89 JetDirect 10bT Ethernet card later, I have a fantastic network printer that will last me for many years. I do a lot of prepress, brochures, etc. and the thing has already paid for itself just in printing out work for my clients (I charge them about half of what the local printer charges, and I've made plenty of money from that.)

    I admit that $600 for a printer with less than 10,000 pages is a great deal, but there are some on eBay that are coming down under $800. (Note: Don't have one shipped... buy locally if at ALL possible. These things are HEAVY.)

    If you're interested in a new color laser, the little Laserjet 1500L printers [hp.com] offer great bang for the buck. They're more unobtrusive than the giant 4500 series, but they have the same great laser quality starting at around $800. PC Connection [pcconnection.com] has good prices for these as well, especially if you open an account with them.

    If you want a brand-new giant color laser, try the Color Laserjet 4600. [hp.com] Yes, these are in the $2000 range, but if you're printing hundreds of pages per day, they are a good value.

    I would never buy an inkjet again for a business. Yes, you can get an inkjet printer for $100, but those cartridges are a killer ($30 and they last perhaps 150 pages.) My color toner cartridges are $125, but they last for six thousand pages. The black toner cartridges are cheaper and go for 10,000 pages or more. At 11,000 pages, I've only ever had to replace one cyan cartridge, and I routinely do runs of a few hundred pages each. I'll never go back to the treadmill of inkjet cartridge upgrades.

    For a church, I'd say the 1100 and 2500 series ($1200 or less) will work out great. Good luck on finding a printer that works well for you!

    • I have nothing to add, really, but I just wanted to say that this is an excellent post. Positive and very informative. Almost makes me turn on the "I'm willing to moderate" flag so I can give points to posts like this. =)

      Doug

    • I would recommend the 4600 over the 4500 if you are going to use manual feed. The manual feed on the 4500 is way sensitive and jams frequently for apparently no reason.

      The 4600 has a really weird manual input tray that draws the paper *under* the installed tray. Very strange. And there is a little plastic wheel on the right side of the manual feed tray that can snap off easily if you aren't careful.

      All in all though, I would choose the 4600. We have three of them around here and I only ever really get
  • You asked about color laser, but if all you're looking for is decent color prints you might want to take a look at Oki Digital LED printers. I'm not a printing expert and I'm really not sure of the advantages and disadvantages of LED vs traditional laser printing, but I do know that our users who have been using an Oki 7000 series for a while really like it.
  • Check out www.freecolorprinters.com [freecolorprinters.com]. It's a special deal run by Xerox for organizations that need to print large volumes of color documents. The rules are basically like this:
    • You sign up with them and indicate how many pages per month you print on average
    • If they accept you into the program, they'll ship you a Xerox color laser printer (such as the Phaser 8200) which is completely network ready, etc.
    • Every month, you send them a form (from the printer) to show them how many pages you printed during
    • "Every month, you send them a form (from the printer) to show them how many pages you printed during the month
      After 3 years, the printer is yours!
      There are a few strings attached: You have to buy your ink from them. And if you forget to send in the form every month they'll charge you a fee." ...
      "Additionally, the black ink is completely free! "

      Do the reports indicate whether the pages were color prints? If not, I could sure use a free printer and free black ink and take a slight loss on the color ink b
      • They do indicate how many pixels of each of the CMYK ink were used, but they don't seem to inforce it. I don't use much color and they don't complain. The contract that I got into didn't say anything about printing any specific amount of color.. only that I had to print a few thousand pages per month.

  • Obvious (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's a church? Canon's your brand.
  • Depending on exactly what it is that you want to do, you may not need or want a colour laser printer.

    If you're doing reasonably high-volume duplicating, but not such a high volume that an offset press is required, then what you want is a machine called a "digital duplicator", such as a Risograph [riso.com]. It's sort of a cross between a photocopier and one of the old crank Gestetner duplicating machines that used to be popular in schools. You put your original document on the scanner board just like a photocopier
  • Now don't laugh, but this guy really needs a mimeograph machine. I saw the perfect machine for this guy, a digital 4-color mimeograph, at a conference about 10 years ago. I went to a computer conference for school tech admins, some company (I forgot who) was demoing a high-speed CMYK mimeograph that had digital input in PostScript. I guess they figured schools were familiar with mimeography and were prepared for this weird hybrid beast. This was back in the early days of direct-to-plate, and they'd adapted
  • Maximum paper format
    How much paper can it store ?
    How many pages/minute ?
    Most important of all: What is the total click cost (cost per imprint.)

    Consider asking a copier dealer about a pay per click.

  • Sorry for the lack of details.

    We're expecting to do around 15,000 color pages per month, double sided. 11"x17" ability needed.

    Copier functionality is a possibility... we are just checking our options.

    Thanks for the idea of local printing houses... that is actually one of the options we are considering.

    Thanks again for all the useful feedback.

    • I help run a fairly large club (2,000 members) that has a publicity drive every 3-4 months, during which time we print something like 20,000 flyers, brochures, etc. in various formats. We also print quite a lot of lower volume things: tickets, certificates, etc.

      We've investigated this area in some depth, and concluded that for the high volume stuff, it's much cheaper to use an external print shop if other practicalities permit. There are several around and they're quite competitive for the sort of busines

  • While the Xerox Phaser series is great, if you want really high volume, you need Xerox DocuColor iGen3 [xerox.com] for 6,000 impressions per hour, auto duplex. According to BusinessWire [businesswire.com], the DocuColor iGen3 lauched starting at a list price of $510,000, but I don't know if that's the current price.

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