G
Guy Owen
I have been using the Xerox 8200DP Solid Ink Printer for over a year,
now, and thought the following observations might help potential
buyers or users trying to make a decision on this unit.
1) As reported elsewhere, setup is incredibly easy.
2) Output is very nice, indeed, but does not compete with the
Photographic Quality of other color lasers. In fact, this is more like
an inkjet or BubbleJet than a laser, so it shouldn't really be put
into the laser category.
3) Xerox owns the technology so it should be the only company you can
buy this type of printer from.
4) Main benefits include ease-of-use and the finish look (if it
appeals to you). I have a screenprinter associate who dearly loves the
output. Professional photographers may not / will not. This printer is
very good for brochures and fliers, but is not for archival-quality
imaging.
5) Since it can do Double-Sided printing, pre-printed sheets should be
able to go through for a second pass at a later date -- but there is
one small drawback. The second printing will cause the first side to
take on a different finish quality. Both sides will not have the same
glossiness.
6) I would NOT recommend third-party off-brand ink. Although I have
used them successfully, I had some real scares with this ink. I think
the biggest problem is two-fold -- even if the printing works
successfully. a) The cheaper wax units typically have a lot of flaking
and breaking problems. Clean them thoroughly by wiping with a cloth
before inserting them into the cavities while refilling this printer.
If flakes get down into the printhead area, the result may appear to
be clogged heads when, in fact, they are merely blocked by debris. I
was successful in using a can of compressed air to remove much of
this. b) Even if you have no flaking, it was very evident after using
these inks that they rub off or can be far more easily scratched than
the original Xerox inks. If durability is important to you, don't use
them.
7) Wax inks can actually be "polished" to some degree to get rid of
blemishes after printing. If you get a slight scuffing on your image,
a soft tissue will bring back the gloss, and hide the defect. Rubbing
too hard may show the paper underneath.
8) Add-in memory from third-party manufacturers DO work in this
printer. In my opinion, you are unwise to pay $500 or $800 for
Xerox-branded memory modules when you can look up a perfectly
compatible module at Kingston.com and pay as little as $57 online for
an additional 128MB of RAM. Installation is very easy. I got this
advice from a Service Tech at Xerox.
9) The add-in Hard Drive option may be different. I have not tried
buying anything that is supposedly compatible.
10) In a book written by Harald Johnson, called "Mastering Digital
Printing", he states that Xerox claims the fade-resistance of the wax
output from this printer is ONLY "a year or more" with office lighting
and "over several years" with dark storage. Do NOT, then, consider
this unit for printing archival-quality images.
11) This is a true piezoelectric inkjet, defined by its design
characteristics -- except for the fact that its ink is resin-based.
Instead of smaller printheads for each color, the printhead extends
across the entire width of the sheet -- 88 nozzles in each row of 4.
However, the ink does not go directly onto the paper -- it first gets
applied to a rotating drum, then gets transferred to the paper in a
single pass. Therefore, it has an advantage in faster print speed over
almost all lasers, which typically print each color separately using
four passes. And the alignment of colors is more reliable with less
moving parts. Also, the ink is independent of the media since there is
no wicking or absorbing that takes place. Hence, the colors are a lot
more vibrant than most anything else. It really resembles
screenprinting of heavy ink onto the substrate instead of airbrushing
applied to a porous material.
12) I have NOT had any jams in over a year of printing. My earlier
Minolta color laser drove me crazy with jamming.
13) The special features of my DP model have proven to be VERY
comfortable and usable -- especially the Double-Sided Printing
ability. I have loved working with this printer far more than any
other that I've owned. The ease-of-use makes up for the pitfalls. Ink
seems expensive at first blush, but try buying 4 cartridges of toner
for a Lexmark or Minolta color laser and you'll be SHOCKED at the cost
of feeding those beasts. Then add in the $400 or so you'll need for
drum replacement in those machines, coating rollers, etc. This is a
PERFECT color printer for a small business needing to create
promotional fliers, letterheads, etc., but is NOT a particularly good
choice for a professional photography or design studio. This is NOT --
in my experience as a graphic artist -- a good choice for Color
Proofing. No other printer uses this technology, so what are you
hoping to "compare"??
14) This unit will NOT print a full Legal-sized page in color. The
print area is restricted to 12 inches of the 14 inch dimension.
Bummer! That is because of the size of the drum and the process it
uses to print in one pass. In the old days, they didn't tell you this
in the literature. But if you look closely, you'll see the maximum
printing area defined for each sheet size that the printer will
handle. Stating that it will print on a Legal sheet does NOT mean the
same thing as stating it will print a full page of image area on that
sheet.
15) I have NOT been able to get the "Booklet" feature of the driver to
work, even wih the Memory maxed-out to 256MB. You may need the
expensive Hard Drive Option to utilize the Booklet Feature of its
driver. However, you can also simply buy ClickBook for a lot less
money, if you wish. I have the DP unit, so the Booklet feature
supposedly works, but I have not found the secret, just yet.
16) In my experience, all is NOT necessarily lost if you clog this
with third-party inks. It just recently happened to me, while trying
to complete a Christmas Card project for a friend. But you may go
through 8 or more ink cartridges of every color while getting the
clogged jets to clear up. My procedure involved turning it completely
off for 4 hours to cool. Then restarting it, which runs the full purge
cycle. Then immediately running a cleaning cycle. Repeat about 6 times
over as many days. You might as well use up that third party ink,
anyway -- because if you survive this carnage, you'll never buy them,
again. I did not have a single instance of clogged jets until the very
instant that the new, cheaper ink hit the printheads. After that, the
clogging was instantaneous. I was fortunate in that it eventually
cleared. The friend immediately noticed that the new ink flakes off
the paper and is far more easily scratched than the original ink. So
in my humble opinion, it simply isn't worth it to chance destruction
of a $2,000 printer.
I hope this helps!
Guy Owen
USA
now, and thought the following observations might help potential
buyers or users trying to make a decision on this unit.
1) As reported elsewhere, setup is incredibly easy.
2) Output is very nice, indeed, but does not compete with the
Photographic Quality of other color lasers. In fact, this is more like
an inkjet or BubbleJet than a laser, so it shouldn't really be put
into the laser category.
3) Xerox owns the technology so it should be the only company you can
buy this type of printer from.
4) Main benefits include ease-of-use and the finish look (if it
appeals to you). I have a screenprinter associate who dearly loves the
output. Professional photographers may not / will not. This printer is
very good for brochures and fliers, but is not for archival-quality
imaging.
5) Since it can do Double-Sided printing, pre-printed sheets should be
able to go through for a second pass at a later date -- but there is
one small drawback. The second printing will cause the first side to
take on a different finish quality. Both sides will not have the same
glossiness.
6) I would NOT recommend third-party off-brand ink. Although I have
used them successfully, I had some real scares with this ink. I think
the biggest problem is two-fold -- even if the printing works
successfully. a) The cheaper wax units typically have a lot of flaking
and breaking problems. Clean them thoroughly by wiping with a cloth
before inserting them into the cavities while refilling this printer.
If flakes get down into the printhead area, the result may appear to
be clogged heads when, in fact, they are merely blocked by debris. I
was successful in using a can of compressed air to remove much of
this. b) Even if you have no flaking, it was very evident after using
these inks that they rub off or can be far more easily scratched than
the original Xerox inks. If durability is important to you, don't use
them.
7) Wax inks can actually be "polished" to some degree to get rid of
blemishes after printing. If you get a slight scuffing on your image,
a soft tissue will bring back the gloss, and hide the defect. Rubbing
too hard may show the paper underneath.
8) Add-in memory from third-party manufacturers DO work in this
printer. In my opinion, you are unwise to pay $500 or $800 for
Xerox-branded memory modules when you can look up a perfectly
compatible module at Kingston.com and pay as little as $57 online for
an additional 128MB of RAM. Installation is very easy. I got this
advice from a Service Tech at Xerox.
9) The add-in Hard Drive option may be different. I have not tried
buying anything that is supposedly compatible.
10) In a book written by Harald Johnson, called "Mastering Digital
Printing", he states that Xerox claims the fade-resistance of the wax
output from this printer is ONLY "a year or more" with office lighting
and "over several years" with dark storage. Do NOT, then, consider
this unit for printing archival-quality images.
11) This is a true piezoelectric inkjet, defined by its design
characteristics -- except for the fact that its ink is resin-based.
Instead of smaller printheads for each color, the printhead extends
across the entire width of the sheet -- 88 nozzles in each row of 4.
However, the ink does not go directly onto the paper -- it first gets
applied to a rotating drum, then gets transferred to the paper in a
single pass. Therefore, it has an advantage in faster print speed over
almost all lasers, which typically print each color separately using
four passes. And the alignment of colors is more reliable with less
moving parts. Also, the ink is independent of the media since there is
no wicking or absorbing that takes place. Hence, the colors are a lot
more vibrant than most anything else. It really resembles
screenprinting of heavy ink onto the substrate instead of airbrushing
applied to a porous material.
12) I have NOT had any jams in over a year of printing. My earlier
Minolta color laser drove me crazy with jamming.
13) The special features of my DP model have proven to be VERY
comfortable and usable -- especially the Double-Sided Printing
ability. I have loved working with this printer far more than any
other that I've owned. The ease-of-use makes up for the pitfalls. Ink
seems expensive at first blush, but try buying 4 cartridges of toner
for a Lexmark or Minolta color laser and you'll be SHOCKED at the cost
of feeding those beasts. Then add in the $400 or so you'll need for
drum replacement in those machines, coating rollers, etc. This is a
PERFECT color printer for a small business needing to create
promotional fliers, letterheads, etc., but is NOT a particularly good
choice for a professional photography or design studio. This is NOT --
in my experience as a graphic artist -- a good choice for Color
Proofing. No other printer uses this technology, so what are you
hoping to "compare"??
14) This unit will NOT print a full Legal-sized page in color. The
print area is restricted to 12 inches of the 14 inch dimension.
Bummer! That is because of the size of the drum and the process it
uses to print in one pass. In the old days, they didn't tell you this
in the literature. But if you look closely, you'll see the maximum
printing area defined for each sheet size that the printer will
handle. Stating that it will print on a Legal sheet does NOT mean the
same thing as stating it will print a full page of image area on that
sheet.
15) I have NOT been able to get the "Booklet" feature of the driver to
work, even wih the Memory maxed-out to 256MB. You may need the
expensive Hard Drive Option to utilize the Booklet Feature of its
driver. However, you can also simply buy ClickBook for a lot less
money, if you wish. I have the DP unit, so the Booklet feature
supposedly works, but I have not found the secret, just yet.
16) In my experience, all is NOT necessarily lost if you clog this
with third-party inks. It just recently happened to me, while trying
to complete a Christmas Card project for a friend. But you may go
through 8 or more ink cartridges of every color while getting the
clogged jets to clear up. My procedure involved turning it completely
off for 4 hours to cool. Then restarting it, which runs the full purge
cycle. Then immediately running a cleaning cycle. Repeat about 6 times
over as many days. You might as well use up that third party ink,
anyway -- because if you survive this carnage, you'll never buy them,
again. I did not have a single instance of clogged jets until the very
instant that the new, cheaper ink hit the printheads. After that, the
clogging was instantaneous. I was fortunate in that it eventually
cleared. The friend immediately noticed that the new ink flakes off
the paper and is far more easily scratched than the original ink. So
in my humble opinion, it simply isn't worth it to chance destruction
of a $2,000 printer.
I hope this helps!
Guy Owen
USA
