Need advice on hardware? Ask questions and share your opinions here.
#4814 by Steve Baldwin
Tue Aug 02, 2005 2:24 pm
Hi all.

Here at the office, we have a vender trying to push a new large format multifunction machine ... a KIP 3000, which is a digital copier, network printer, and scanning system.

Since our current plotter that we have been using for several years (an Hp 1050c) is starting to develope a few problems (but at the moment is still very usable), and our large format copy machine (an old Xerox 2510) is also developing problems, we are considering doing some upgrading ... whether it is to this new (but a bit pricy ... $15,000) machine, or just a replacement plotter and/or copier.

I was asked to see if I could get an idea from some others here on the forum on how a few other firms are handling their plotting, copying, and scanning needs, and possibly even get some alternate recommendations.

Currently, here is how we typically use our equipment...

- BLACK/WHITE CONST DOC printing for in-house use ...... Daily use of our plotter.

- BLACK/WHITE CONST DOC SETS to be printed and sent out ...... Send to a printing service. (The new machine would probably mean in-house printing of these sets).

- COLOR PRINTING for presentations or renderings ...... Occasional in-house printing. (The new machine does not do color, so we would then have to send this out).

- COPY MACHINE ...... Occasional copies, primarily for in-house use.

- SCANNING ...... We now do not do any large format scanning, but THINK we would like to scan-in our vault full of old printed projects.

Any feedback would be appreciated.
#4823 by Brian Engebretson
Tue Aug 02, 2005 4:26 pm
We are currently using a Xerox 510dp for all of our plotting. It’s a really nice machine so far. It prints 10 D size pages per minute. (No more waiting around at 5:00 on a Friday evening watching that urgent set of plans print out.) And it has 3 paper roll drawers. It can be used as a walk up copier or you can scan to file. Black and white scans can be saved as TIFF or PDF. We use PDFs almost all the time. We also added the color scan option (TIFF or JPG). This has come in handy several times. We can scan in redlined plans and e-mail them back to the engineers or whoever. Unfortunately, it doesn’t print in color.

I love being able to scan old drawing into PDFs. What used to be a nightmare of digging through old boxes, sometimes in off-site storage has become as simple as point-click-print. (Actually a few points, and a few clicks, but I think you know what I mean) The initial cost of these plotters can be a bit daunting, but I do not know how we used to survive without ours. It saves us SOOO much time, and time is money as you know.

We looked at KIPs when we were picking out ours. I don’t remember specifically what swayed us towards the Xerox. I’m sure the KIP would serve you well. As another option, you may want to look onto OCE. Most of the repro companies that I have dealt with use OCE as their reprographic machines.
#5025 by Rocket468
Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:50 pm
We have a kip 4000 and a star print 2080 scanner. I Like it alot. We payed pretty pricey for it used. I am glade we have the service contract, because it does seem to need service every 2 months or so. We have 240,000 ft of the machine now and put close to 1,000 feet a day usually. We have went thru as many as 3 rolls of paper in one day. So our frequent service needs is from high use. We did buy it with alot of feet already on it. But i am happy with it. The only thing I don't like about it is that our older unit is that it runs on NT and they don't offer drivers to switch the internal computer over to 2k or xp. I think the newer ones run on 2k. The print driver takes all print jobs and turn it into a tiff. We change the path it normal paste the file to and use a batch file to copy that so that we have to only print out of dcad once. If we re sell the plans we just have do if from the requester instead of reprintign from dcad. We make our money on selling stock plans, and this saves us lots of time. If you like I can get you a copy of the batch file i wrote to copy files and rename them.
#5032 by Steve Baldwin
Tue Aug 09, 2005 5:17 pm
Rocket468 wrote:If you like I can get you a copy of the batch file i wrote to copy files and rename them.


No need to do that at this time. We have decided to hold off on this pricy purchase, and basically limp along with the printer and copier that we already have ... until they die. That machine is actually more than this company needs right now, anyway.

Thanks!
#17966 by Jeff Budkoski
Thu Dec 28, 2006 5:16 pm
We're currently researching options for a large format print/scan/copy to net machine. After getting a recommendation for the Xerox 510 we started looking at that system.

The vendor (a large reprographics company in the Atlanta area) quoted an estimate of 18 to 22K for the 510 setup. But upon actually receiving quotes we were reminded of the fact that the initial estimate was for hardware only - the final quote for print/scan/copy/copy to net/color scan to net/ps (including software hehe) was around 31K which still didn't include their 1K delivery and setup not to mention taxes.

We requested another quote for the smaller 6204 unit, which came in at around 17K for everything (embedded controllers on this one). We also looked at the KIP 3000 and received a quote for around the same price. The KIP maintenance for service/toner/paper would run us about 1/3 of the cost of the comparable Xerox unit. (including scan/print/copy options as mentioned above).

The nice thing about the KIP is the large user screen. Unlike the Xerox you can start scanning immediately upon entering your originals. We also like the toner replacement being on the front of the unit for ease of service. Also, paper jams are much easier to deal with on the KIP and the printer includes a really nice software package that allows you to perform file management to any Windows based PC.


I read the other day that Fuji makes the Xerox printer (the 6402 anyway) and that larger Xerox printers are actually KIP machines. (The larger Oce plotters are also relabled KIP printers.) A color scan upgrade to the 6402 could get nasty since the actual hardware is two different companies - the best option would be to just purchase the more expensive 510.

Any other comments on these printers would be appreciated.

TIA,

Jeff Budkoski

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