Best digital press today?

[stargate]

Is it Xerox iGen or is there something better?

[OffsetGuy@presstechnician.com]

I would recomend the Screen TruePress344. Screen is one great company. It is a real litho press not toner or waterless copier.

[stargate]

What kind of a front end do you use? How does it compare to iGen?

[jhands@gettype.com]

For image quality you probably can't beat the HP Indigo 5000. One drawback, the ink is sensitive to scratching, so a separate UV coating or over-laminating machine is recommended. We almost went with the iGen but its larger footprint forced us to go with the slightly smaller Indigo 5000. The Screen TruePress is a DI (direct imaging) machine. I think those machines are getting squeezed out of the market as true digital machines like Indigo and iGen get faster and faster. At the same time, make-ready on 4-color offset machines is getting faster, so that leaves very little room for DI machines to exist. Besides, you can't run variable data on a DI machine. Also, HP Indigo just released the Indigo 5500 with a better paper feeder and slightly larger image area (12.49"x17.7" on 13x19 paper).

[OffsetGuy@presstechnician.com]

It also depends if you like the dull muddy look of toner or waterless ink. VDP to me is a waste of time. It is aimed at junk mail. If I receive a political add in my mailbox with my name on it…so what. Even GATF is sending out brochures with my name on it and I prefer they not do that. With identity theft as rampant as it is I do not need a company sending me a printed piece with my name and address and email contact thru the mail. I just received a post card form Ptek with all my contact info in plain view inviting me to logon to my PURL site and see how great the 52DI and VDP can work together, How dare they use my name and address to push their products. They must have used a database to secure my info. Where did they buy it?
It [VDP} is just another way to sell database names and sniff our identity. Printing is to share the beauty of a printed piece not to harvest names for VDP and PURL’s.
Another question, if you research Web2Print sites they seem to demand you host on their servers. Do they harvest your printing customers also?
IMHO

Will the owners of printing companies continue to buy into the new hype of VDP? It is junk mail guys not Lithography.

[LoneGoose]

Offset Guy, I'd love to agree with you. I, myself, am in digital printing, but I'm itching to say good riddance to this place and go off to make engraved stationery! Unfortunately we're all stuck in the rat race - it's just about the bottom line, you know? Or maybe this is a cop-out thing to say...

Oh, to get back to the thread's topic: How is the up-time on the Indigo? The NexPress may have an advantage there. The operator-servicing aspect is great; but in hindsight, a click-charge structure would be so much easier for estimating costs! When you get image artifacts on you Indigo (you do, don't you?), who fixes it? Do you have to wait for a technician to come out?

[jhands@gettype.com]

Most of the servicing on Indigo is done by the operator. The Indigo training consists of one week of operator training, then one week of maintenance training within six months. The up-time on the Indigo 5000 has been pretty good, especially compared to our previous digital press, the Indigo 1000. But, I think it's hard to compare up-times unless you've worked with both machines being compared.

In response to Offset Guy's comment about muddy toner, I agree that most digital presses give the thick, muddy toner look, but the Indigo 5000 doesn't give that look. The advantage that Indigo has is that they're suspending their toner particles in liquid (mineral oil). From what I understand, it allows Indigo to make a smaller toner particle than is possible in dry toner machines, which have to use hepa filters to filter the toner out of the air inside the machine. If the dry toner particle is made too small, it passes through the hepa filter instead of being caught by it.

[LoneGoose]

So the operator can do most servicing him/herself? That sounds pretty good. Indigo has really impressed me over the last year. The label press would be the bomb for our business (we're in a central wine-producing area).

What sort of image artifacts / defects does one most experience on the Indigo? On the NexPress, our demon is streaking. Mostly to do with fuser-oil contamination, general wear 'n tear etc. Also registration when printing small type in colour (especially knock-out). The indigo only has one blanket cylinder, doesn't it? So, no registration hassles?

What is the greatest caliper of paper that the digital presses out there can handle? On the NexPress (2100 classic) it's 0.35mm.

[mikemin]

*As an owner of a HP Indigo 5000, scratching is usually caused by incorrect adjustment and is not a problem with the equipment.*

We are Digital Printing Business in Australia and we operate two Digital Presses that compliment each other
# Indigo 5000 - for shorter runs and personalization including [Direct Smile|http://www.digiwedoo.com.au/content/view/50/52/|Direct Smile] Software
# Ryobi DI 3403 for our longer runs... say, up to 100,000
Both pressers work very well and we have won many awards for our printing quality both locally and Nationally.

[www.digiwedoo.com.au|http://www.digiwedoo.com.au|Digi we doo]

[mikemin]

Hp Indigo 5000 scratching relates to POST PRESS scratching not scratching during the printing process and this is also is not a problem.