Wide Format Scanner

[aggockel50321]

The facilities dept. here is thinking of purchasing a wide format scanner (36").

Anyone have any experience or suggestions for the same??

Given the prices I've seen, we might be better off to stick with our repro service.

[mail1774]

Our company purchased a scanner and printer from Oce Technologies

In short, they are very reliable and fast! (Once they are configured correctly which may be a pain in the A$$) These are also the trusted name for many reprographics companies. I know for a fact that Kinkos uses them and our repro company uses them.

The scanner can scan direct to their printers or scan to a digital file like TIFF and JPEG too I believe... You can also do zooming, contrast, type (photo, text/lines, and media)

The down side to this is that they are pricey.
I think our firm purchased the scanner and printer for around $20K (just a ballpark figure...)

But so far we've had them for a year and we are very happy with it!
There is also a plus!
Batch plotting can be made via their software 'PrintExec LT' which cost additional... but you can make plot files from AutoCAD then when you do need set(s) you can place the plot files in the program in the order you want then do batch plotting and it will collate the sets for you... (Which is a very nice feature since most firms have to submit multi-sets to bldg and planning dept.)

So there you have it... Hope my input helps
Pete.

[Steve_Stafford]

We use the Xerox 8830 plotter with the companion scanner. It does pretty well for us. I have no idea what the $$ are but can't imagine it's cheap. I've been impressed with the OCE equipment I've seen too.

If you are sending out for scanning regularly then it's time to crunch the numbers and figure out what your ROI will be. If you were using our local source for scanning, you'd make your money back in a week :lol:

[beegee]

Depends if you disbursements are fee inclusive or chargable.

Mine are usually chargable, so capital cost outlays for equipment not in constant use, comes down to a man-hour costing exercise ( cost of an office junior to scoot out and get the large size prints, scans or whatever vs lease cost/tax advantage/ opportunity cost and mark-up profit etc. You need an accountant to do the latter part of that sort of number crunching.

[gregcashen]

I have a friend who just bought 2 of the larger OCE all-in-one's...scanner, plotter, copier, coffee maker, shoe-shiner...they are about $40,000 each I believe. He has set them up under a separate business and they see almost non-stop action between the plotting and scanning...

[aggockel50321]

Thanks for the input. All the local sales people here talk in the $20k range, but i did see a Contex at this site for about half of the above.

http://www.scantastik.com/hardware/contex/chameleon_tx_36.htm

Gonna be an expensive roll of the dice... I just love this electronic stuff. I'll probably see it 3 years from now for $999.

[cwentworth]

You will not be disappointed by the Contex scanner. We sell them and the Ideal.com software that comes with it is amazing. You can scan an old drawing and change raster to vector very quickly, make changes and print a new drawing. Very cool stuff. I use there 3D printers to make models and sometimes we scan old drawings to make the models. I love this new technology, ten years ago I would be cutting foam with a knife!

Chris
www.3drp.com