Digital BW, The Print

RE: using a laser printer

I have found the toner cost to be the least significant cost - the consumables include:
(1) transfer roller
(2) fuser
(3) imaging unit
(4) transfer belt
(5) belt cleaner

3,000 to 5,000 cards is enough to chew up a transfer roller and fuser.  Figure on adding about $0.15 cost per card for all these components.  Toner is only about $0.03 per card.

Also, I find the per cent coverage should be considered to be 100% over 50% of the paper.  Thus, the faster churn of the consumables than is typically quoted (5% for office documents with trival graphics).

The Xerox 7760DN can do 12 cards per minute.  But some lighter grays don't print as well - streaking, for example - but most B&W images look pretty good on a high gloss card stock like 10pt KromeKote Plus.



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "sinar001" <jnolly@...> wrote:
>
> Interesting to see how people have coped with the problem. It only seems to "become" a problem if you are dealing with more than a dozen or so at a time.
> 
> Of course you can buy the pre-scored greeting card papers from Red River, but when you discover that over 30 cents a card for paper is too much to handle at the volume you want to make them, then it's time to move from ink jet printing to color laser printing.
> 
> I've had great success with the Konica Minolta 2350 and 2550 printers. You can buy them for under $500 with a full set of toner carts (4,500 10% coverage)(the 2350 has been discontinued). Then experiment and find the paper that delivers the results you like the best. I then order the paper through a printer that has a scoring machine, cut and scored to my specifications. Costs me about 10 cents for a 7x10 sheet.
> 
> The 2550 laser printer cranks out about 4 cards every two minutes with the "heavy paper setting'.
> 
> I did make a custom printer profile with Spyder3 Print, and use Adobe Indesign.
> 
> John Nollendorfs
>