looking for an A3 printer which can print large quantities

JamesAnderson · 19 Oct 2011 at 13:52

The printers which I use have hiked their prices up to the point where I cannot afford it. I need to print A3 double sided in colour (quality does not matter) it must be priced between £200-300, do large quantities (anything from 2500-7500 double sided sheets print over a few days).

I used to have an HP k8600 but took it back as it was slow when I printed in large volumes, it had no duplexer so I had to manually turn the paper around. But it was an inkjet and I had a CISS system installed and it cost me about £10-£20 worth of ink to do about 7000 sheets of A3 Double sided paper but It stopped working and I took it back.

What should I look for in buying a printer for this kind of work, A big photocopier which would cost a lot, a laser printer or an inkjet (which I prefer because of the cheap Ciss)

Thanks

Adam_101 · 19 Oct 2011 at 13:59

Not sure if this is or any use for what you need, as printers are not my strong point but the - Brother MFCJ6710DW A3 Multifunction Inkjet Printer - may be worth looking at!

JamesAnderson · 19 Oct 2011 at 21:21

had a look at it but I'm not sure it would do high volume and it has a copier/scanner which may slow it down, any suggestions anyone?

Surveyor · 19 Oct 2011 at 21:54

You're asking a lot for your money and there are no colour A3 lasers I can see in that price range

The performance you're talking about is the sort of thing that businesses pay large four figure sums for.

At the top end of your budget would be something like the Canon Pixma iX7000, an A3 colour inkjet with automatic duplexing.

Duplex A3 printing is probably no more than a couple of pages per minute.

Printing solidly 8 hours a day for 5 days would give you around 5,000 prints. Probably less in reality due to downtime addding and removing paper, ink filling etc.

I doubt a £300 printer is designed to cope with this sort of load.

SheepBeast · 20 Oct 2011 at 01:08

not that it's any of my business but what are you doing which requires that kind of capacity? running your own business or...?

that's a commercial-level volume of printing, not the kind of thing a £300 printer would be capable of IMHO (not that i'm an expert on printers mind you)

Clav · 20 Oct 2011 at 08:26

For that money you need to be looking at something second hand, you may be able to get an older HP 5500 or similar from a liquidation auction or from places going out of business. At work we now use the HP CM6040's for this and they are £4k a pop. If you do manage to lay hands on a laser the toners are still going to set you back ~£150 each for the genuine manufacturer parts.

Do print shops still exist? It may work out cheaper to take your stuff to someone else to be printed?