Plotters

[Doug]

I am in the market for a new plotter... thinking about Oce 9400II or Xerox 8825

I am running Windows XP

Any thoughts?

[Solomon]

We're just about to replace our Xerox 8830 (with the newer upgraded model 510dp), which I'm pretty sure is very simliar to the 8825. Once I changed a Windows driver setting (Printing Preferences>Graphics>De-select "Enable RTL native mode resolution",) I haven't had any issues with it printing-wise from Revit. But that's with Windows 2000, I haven't tested Revit plots from XP. If you add the Post-Script module to the printer, then you should also be able to submit PDF files directly for print, instead of plt files.

The software used to submit plots & pdfs to the printer (AccXES) is a bit clunky, and doesn't natively offer any sort of queue management, but your mileage may vary.

I think someone had issues with their Oce 9600 drivers, don't know if it was worked out, or how closely related the 9400 is to the 9600. According to our printing provider (and Xerox reseller) the current Oce's are using older (or Revit-lingo > "legacy") technology for their printer. Not sure how true that is...

Hope that helps,

Solomon

[Doug]

Thanks for the info... Let me know how you like the 510... I think I better go the the show room for a demo with my laptop.

Doug

[PeterJ]

An awful lot of repro houses use Oce, these people have very high throughput and wouldn't stick with something unproven - just a thought

[Zig]

We use a HP500 - 42" Plotter. Never had a problem with it yet.

[mlgatzke]

I'm using a Xerox 8825 with Revit. It's queued directly from a Windows 2000 Advanced Server and our workstations are running Windows 2000. The printing is flawless and we haven't had any problems with it. However, the 8825 is weak on grayscales. If you use a lot of grays you may want to keep that in mind.

[Solomon]

A little more information... We are on sort of a 'lease' with our printer, where we pay per square foot of actual prints. Included in our lease is all the service required to keep it running in good order. We average about 80,000 square feet per month, which is apparently more than the 8830 is intended for, and as a result it required some sort of service every month or so. In the XES line of printers, supposedly the 8825/8830 is the least reliable (stands to reason, it's at the bottom of the model line.) But, honestly reliability wasn't ever a real problem for us. However, be sure to include some sort of service contract.

We have a bunch of old pencil-drawn plans, so we required the Scanner/Printer combo, which apparently requires the AccXES software that i think is a bit clunky. If you can queue directly with only the printer, I would try that route.

Supposedly the 510dp is replacing the XES 8825/8830/8855 line entirely. It's -basically- the hardware of the 8855, but in three modes - 5 Ds/min, 7Ds/min and 10Ds/min (thus the model name 5-10.) So if they're selling the 8825, maybe they're trying to dump their old inventory - you might get a decent price out of it. Mike's right about not being real strong on grayscales, as well as not being real stong on a true black, which is corrected with the 510dp.

Our printhouse also sells Oce (which I had always understood to be the best name in large format printing), and they have a bunch of 9600s in production currently. However, they pointed us toward the 510dp, and said that within the year their 9600s will be replaced with 510dps. Whatever that's worth...