Printer for high volume

[pkk]

Hey again all.
Well my Pro 9000 Mk II has gotten me into another fine mess. I've been printing the proofs for our church newsletter on it and now they're wanting to know if we can print the entire run ourselves. These are printed on 11x17, both sides, then folded. We send out 2500 each quarter so that's 20,000 11x17 sheets per year. Obviously the Canon Pro 9000 is not the printer for this. Is there an inkjet printer that would do this efficiently? I think a 4 tank printer with a wide carriage and fairly fast is the minimum. I'm refilling my Canon carts now so that would be the first choice.

Thanks again for all the help. I've learned a bunch since joining this forum.

Pkk

 

[The Hat]

pkk

Unfortunately your pro 9000 will be very capable of that quantity per year so theres no getting out of it that quick.
It will however take time to do all that work so I would suggest you get the help of some of the parishioners
to give you a hand not to mention the guy above. Dominus Vobiscum

On a serious note, youd best need at least two complete sets of cartridges to chance them instantly and carry on printing with little delay.
I would use SquEasy bottles instead of syringes for refilling it would be much faster and cleaner for you..
I would also try to rest the printer every two to three hours at least..

 

[pkk]

Thanks again! You've been helping me with all my injet problems. The main reason I was wanting an alternative to the 9000 is time. It is pretty slow. My little IP 3000 prints circles around it on everyday office work. But it only has an 8" carriage. I don't mind letting them spend some money if they want to do this. The first run will pay for it. And there WILL be volunteers to help. & thanks for the mention about letting the printer rest. I was wondering about heat buildup.

Pkk

 

[RMM]

Pkk, the Pro9000 is a sturdy machine for sure. It wouldn't hurt however to have a second one on hand (can be bought right now for around $200) for a backup in the case that your printer fails for whatever reason... then you won't be stuck without any way to get the job done. You also could use the second printer to be printing on the back side of the paper effectively cutting your print time in half.

 

[The Hat]

pkk
It sounds like this inkjet bug has really gotten a hold of you now and you cant get enough of it.
As RMM said and rightly so, get yourself another pro 9000 to keep the other one jealous and half the job in hand.
If you can get one for $200, thats only a little more than buying another set of cartridges.
Have a look on some of the places like craigslist for a Canon i9950 or similar model that are built for speed,
or stick with the pro 9000 but keep it on standard mode for the whole print job..

 

[mikling]

In this situation, while the Pro900o is up to it, something like an Epson Stylus Photo 1400 with the wide carriage might be more suitable simply because it can be reliably equipped with a CISS. Even picking up an older Epson 1270 and and 1280 will also do the trick.

The key issues in this application does not appear to be the image quality but rather the wider carriage that is able to handle the media and also the ability to print higher volumes with reliability and ease. The 1400 does not need to rest and while it might or might not be slower than the Pro9000, the cartridge changeout time is not an issue with the CISS. I also think that the if high image quality is not an issue, then the 1400 might actually be faster than the 9000. Some testing will bear this out.

So something other than the Pro9000 exists.

In terms of ink consumption, on high volume printing, the Pro9000 and 1400 are pretty much even. Nothing significant enough to be an issue.

If time is an issue, double up on the printers and set up a printer pool ...built into windows. This will allow you to scale the print speed linearly. Two printers for twice the speed and three for triple etc.

 

[pkk]

Yeah I didn't think about just getting another 9000 & using 2 at a time. I bought mine last summer for $160 new in the box & as the Canon rebate deal was still going at least till Dec I guess there's more out there. But you are all answering my questions. Which ever route we take I have some models to check out. Our next issue is coming out in about a month & I may go ahead & print it on my 9000. It will give me a chance to see if the volunteers actually show up to do the rest of the work. At least I know now I won't hurt my baby with this one issue. Thanks again to everybody. This forum is great!

Pkk

 

[pkk]

I should have mentioned too that I'm not worried about quality. Any 4 tank printer out there will do good enough quality. I figured having 4 tanks to keep full instead of 8 would be easier. But then the 9000 really only seems to use 6 colors. I have 2 sets of cli-8 & bci-6 carts now. Thanks again

Pkk

 

[ghwellsjr]

I prefer printers with four dye ink cartridges rather than six because Canon printers favor the photo cyan and photo magenta over their regular versions which means they get used three to four times more often. You're paying about seven times as much for those colors since the photo versions are just diluted versions of the regular ones.

You can tell the difference between a 4- and a 6-dye ink printout when you see them side by side but stand alone, they both look very fine.

 

[l_d_allan]

Interesting saga, and may eventually apply to me, so you've got my full attention.

As far as having two printers, I think a reasonable "rule of thumb" is that if you've undertaken a non-trivial task where people are depending on you to "hold up your end of the bargain", then you should strongly consider having a backup for potential "points of failure". IMHO, this applied even when you aren't charging, but less so.

Or think through what happens if your 9000-2 becomes unusable, for a variety of reasons. Do you have an understanding that use of a commercial printer is an acceptable backup plan? Who pays?

Semi-related "war story" ....
When I first got a DSLR, I volunteered to be the photographer of a four day "Kids Camp" where our church's children's pastor was the camp director. Part of the price was that each camper would receive a CD shortly afterwards with a lot of camp pictures, including lots of pictures of individual campers.

On the second day, my entry level DSLR developed problems and I really had to scramble. A point-n-shoot wasn't an acceptable alternative. I suppose the entry level DSLR really wasn't meant to take 1000+ pictures a day, and may have overheated. Three times back and forth to service over the next several months. I believe a subsequent firmware update from the manufacturer for that model was related to the problem I encountered. In any case, I eventually got a very favorable upgrade to mid-level DSLR.

When it came back the second time, I thought my problems were behind me, so volunteered to take pictures for a five day basketball camp. More problems, and IIRC, I was borrowng a camera that had many controls the opposite clockwise/counter-clockwise from what I was used to. No fun, and less than optimal pictures.

Sorry for the war stories, but I am pondering whether I should plan on having a backup printer, perhaps a used one. For the three or more summer kids/youth camps I envison doing this summer, I am tempted to try to make prints on-site that evening of pictures taken that day ... to give away the next day. That certainly might be overly ambitious.