Plotter recommendation ?

[amitd98]

I am looking to buy a plotter.

I need mainly a black and white +gray scale plotting for CAD , 24x36 shts, volume of about 15,000-20,000 sf per year or so.
The plotter should have a roll feeder.

I looked into message boards about the Designjet 100 (manual feed only ???) and the 120 (complaints about bad lines quality, faded blacks - better suited for color printing...)

Any advise will be appreciated.
Are there any WWWs sites or Forums that discuss plotter in particular?

-=Amit

[studio3p]

I suggest you consider an Oce plotter. They have several machines (I've used a 9300 which is/was the baseline plotter) and your local reseller should be more than happy to show you the lineup and discuss the cost vs performance.

If you are really doing non-color printing of that kind of volume then the cost of the machine will quickly be offset by the cost savings of toner (vs ink).

I'm not sure about discussion groups specifically for plotters, but I know that the issue has been addressed on this forum time and time again. Use the Search link at the top of this page to look for threads on plotter(s) and/or Oce. I just did a search for Oce and it returned 8 results.

[Nic M.]

We use the Oce 9300 fot 3 years now and are happy about it.
One serious min point to me is the drivers. Very good for autocad (*.hdi), not so good for windows.
If we plot from acad, the plot is cut on the mm. If we plot from revit (windows driver) we have a white border of 20 - 25 mm. This is so for all windows programs, not a revit problem.
In an other thread here they are using Hp drivers for an oce plotter (different type) but it doesn't seem to work on an oce 9300.
We now plot to pdf and print from the acrobat program so we can rotate the sheet prior to plotting, the white border is on the backside of the sheet (this is not possible in the oce windows driver)then and when we fold the sheet its out of the way. As a plus we have a digital plot of the project for archiving, e-mail,...

I know this is a small glitch in a fine machine and maybe this is not that important, but I have spend a fair amount of time on this so maybe someone would benefit from it.

[amitd98]

I suggest you consider an Oce plotter. They have several machines (I've used a 9300 which is/was the baseline plotter) and your local reseller should be more than happy to show you the lineup and discuss the cost vs performance.

If you are really doing non-color printing of that kind of volume then the cost of the machine will quickly be offset by the cost savings of toner (vs ink).

I'm not sure about discussion groups specifically for plotters, but I know that the issue has been addressed on this forum time and time again. Use the Search link at the top of this page to look for threads on plotter(s) and/or Oce. I just did a search for Oce and it returned 8 results.

Wow,
That's $10,000 plotter, I was looking more at the 2,000 range.
Also at a more compact form factor...
Any suggestions?

[wfdesigns]

We are now using the HP Designjet 500 series with great luck. Fairly inexpensive+-$2500.00, works in windows, ACAD, Revit, Etc., used simple inkjet cartridges bought at any good office supply, and will print 24" x whatever with roll feed. It is a color plotter that we have but I believe there is a version of this plotter that is only B&W. Good luck on your search!

[studio3p]

It's true that the Oce is expensive. But if you are really going to printing that number of sheets per year then I'm not sure an HP will do it for you. On average a draft print of my HP DesignJet 800 (24" wide) takes 3 minutes. I chose to go with the HP because my print load isn't enough to justify the cost. But it does take an hour to print a 20 sheet set whereas when I was working with the Oce those 20 sheets would have been done in about 5 minutes.

If you do go with the inkjet route I suggest going with a plotter like the HP DesignJet 800 (or something similar) because of the capacity of the ink cartridges. Much, much less expensive to use than the plotters that have a combined ink/printhead cartridge.

Also, consider whether or not you charge your clients for prints. When I was using the Oce we charged our clients less than the print houses would have and we were still able to make money on the deal. Combining that with the increased flexibility with time (we could literally work until 15 minutes before a meeting and still have time to go to the bathroom), the Oce was a no brainer. It actually paid for itself within 14 months. After that time it became the cash cow.

As I said though, I have an HP 800 now. And I'm very happy with it. If you do color work or large format photographs, this thing is beautiful.

[amitd98]

http://www.wide-format-printers.org/

[amitd98]

Does anyone have a figure of what's the cost of an in-house plotting/printing per SQ.FT B&W? (paper, toner, maintenance etc...)
My Prinitng house charges me 0.20 per Sq.ft + $3.00 set-up fee.

-=Amit

[PeterJ]

Its going to vary widely, Amit, based on the amount of plotting you do simply becasue your ownership or leasing costs will be fixed, so if the write down is $5k pa and you print 500 square feet that would be $10 per square foot component of your costs, versus 500,000 square feet representing a penny per square foot.

You need to be printing quite large volumes before it is worth doing your own printing in house becasue of the above equation and the costs of someone to stand over the machine, someone to fold, unless you buy the folder too and so on. I worked in a large building services department of a Local Government organistaion for a while and although there had been some historic investment in printing equipment we still found it more cost effective to send anything out other than a couple of prints for a meeting.