I am curious to hear how many printers are on Igen number 2 or more. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I was recently asked by someone looking at digital presses is if you could begin with a single device that will no matter what you purchase be down sometimes.

Since we are the first iGen in this region of the US, we suffer from the lack of hands on training from the Xerox technictions. We have had many issues, from bad hard-drives (required re-installing all software) to registration (required replacing all 22 registration wheels). Like any equipment I'm sure it takes time to get all the bugs out and everything tuned in.

Welcome to the 1st in region club. We were the first in our region to get our Igen also, and 3 years later we still have issues that are new to our techs & region specialist. Note, From our experience, It will take a good 6 months before you and your technicians become proficient with the issues experienced on your Igen. Because your Igen will be the milestone setter for your region, new problems will occur that will stump your technicians as your volume increases, the techs will begin to get more experience as more Igen's are installed in your region, but because you will be the 1st to experience milestone problems on your Igen, your techs will use these as a learning experience that will benefit those Igens installed after yours. We currently have only 1 Igen, but at times it would have been nice to have a back up for service issues that have dragged on over several days.

We've had two iGen's from day one, upgrading from the 6060's. We've hit our capacity now and will be installing two additional iGen's this summer. At first the management wanted to see the capabilities and function of the iGen's before we started converting our black and white applications (that use pre-printed stock) over to full color. We now run three shifts Monday through Friday with some weekends and the only time they stop is for HFSI's and mechanical failure.

You will be amazed at what they can do and how easy it becomes to service them over time. One thing I can recomend is a humidifier, this will help out tremendously in the winter months when the humidity drops in the teens and single digits.

We actually installed three with two in use while still keeping one 6060. We moved our third to our sister company after a few months and did the same to our 6060 at the end of last year. We keep pretty busy with the two and I know we are looking to add another at this facility in the near future. All this and still maintain a huge capacity on our monotone machines.

We have 5, now the biggest comercial user in the UK.

We currently have 6. Three are equipped with roll feed systems, two others have extended feeder trays. All are equipped with the 110 license.

RE: Humidification - Your ability to control the environment of your press room and paper storage YEAR ROUND will affect your output as much as anything. DO NOT SKIMP! Certain stocks are obviously more susceptible, but you don't want to find out the hard way.

Mbrennen, quick question for you, you said you have the 110 license, so does that mean you run 8.5x11? I never understood the 110 speed, since all other paper sizes run the same as the 100.

It is absolutely not true that "all other sizes run the same as the 100".

It's called SmartSize. The 100 runs 3 pitches on the belt, the 110 runs 9 (?). Therefore, the odd and in-between sheet sizes aren't being stuck into one of three pitches with a bunch of wasted space on the PR belt. The 110 fills the PR belt to capacity no matter what the image size.

The 110 actually runs 7x7 sheets at 120ppm. Letter size runs 110. The new pitch sizes on the belt allow a 9" stock, for example, to run at 90ppm instead of the 50ppm with the 100.

If in your business you run everything at max sheet size and cut down afterward, you don't need a 110 license to get max speed out of the press. The 110 (SmartSize) license gives you the flexibility of running, say, variable books on the final sheet size and getting maximum productivity without the mess of offline finishing.

Patrick, it's been a long while since you've been around iGen3. Time to sit back and chill.

But anything larger then 9" runs at the same speed? I do know there are about 9 speeds or modes, vs the 3 that were there before.

Just curious if people are running more 8.5x11 or smaller to gain the speed increase, or if they are maximizing the click costs and running 2 up.

Elmo, you have been warned before, you have to stop the attacks or be banned.

The belt runs at the same speed. But prior, if something went even slightly over one pitch size into the next pitch size, it used the entire area of the next pitch size. Now, that's not the case. There are several cutoff points, not just two.

That being said, the fact remains that the belt runs the same speed. So look at the three-pitch mode: if the second pitch size was between 8.5" and 18" in the process direction, and that gives 50 impressions/minute, even a 9" sheet ran at 50/minute. But the new SmartSize multiple pitches means there's a 90ppm pitch between 8.5" and 9.x". More images can go on the belt when it's divided into more, smaller segments.

But an 18" sheet going through with the belt going at 10rpm still means 50 impressions/minute. That's simple math.



"Speed increase" is a weird concept. Are you talking speed of the press, or are you talking speed of productivity for the overall job from prepress to shipping? You can focus on sheets out per minute, or you can focus on productivity. No matter what, you'll get so many images/minute, whether you run them singly or n-up. N-up, you have cutting to worry about. That affects overall speed/productivity of the job, and introduces another point of potential error (forcing a re-run?), and isn't always suitable for VI jobs.

Running single sheets one-up can possibly cost more on click charges, but can save more in the end, depending on the job type. VI books, especially with inline finishing, are the target for one-up printing.

Ah, the beauty of digital. It's flexible enough to be a standard large-sheet press OR a one-up, small sheet, inline finishing, VI machine.

And then there's the Duplo cutter; print large sheets, take small sheets off the end.

Right, forgot about the fact that 8.5x14 runs faster... No wait, it doesn't, does it when run short edge? Not sure why you would, but maybe the 110 speed increased its speed short edge feed? I can't remember, maybe elmo3 can fill us in?

Speed increase is simple, number of physical sheets out in a fixed time. I believe there also is a optimized tab speed option as well?

So, hopefully someone can answer the question if anyone is running 8.5x11 finished sizes or smaller cost effectively. I know of some inplant that would do this and certainly some inline applications that might make sense, but haven't heard of anyone on here actually doing it for all their work. Most iGen3 people I talk to are trying to maximize click costs and effeciencies of sheet size. Plus clearing all those jammed sheets at 8.5x11 is a royal pain, have they added more paper path sensors to detect rouge 8.5x11 sheets in the paper path yet? I always hated when I thought I got all the paper out only to cycle up and have it find one more I didn't get.

So, what sizes do you typically run?

Again, it all goes down to how many page images can you get on the circumference of the photoreceptor belt. Time was, it was either 10, 5, or 4. If you had a sheet image that was just a teensy bit larger than letter size, it was forced into being put into one of the 5 available spaces per circumference--even if there was a lot of wasted, non-imaged space. If the belt is 10 feet long (for example only; it's not), and you can put 10 8.5" sheets in there but you're feeding a 9" sheet, now you break that belt into five 2 foot sections JUST to accommodate the extra half-inch of the image. The other 1ft 11in of that belt is sitting empty.

With SmartSize, the belt is not divided into 3 fixed image areas. It has more. This simply provided efficiency when running different sheet sizes, and showed that letter size could run at 110ppm. The physical speed of the engine remained unchanged; it was simply the software that put images on the belt that changed.

8.5x14 runs the same speed as 8.5x11, because it's the 8.5 edge that goes through in the process direction. 11 vs 14 doesn't matter; that's a measurement across the belt, so it doesn't affect throughput efficiency.

With the SmartSize imaging came "tab optimization". It's quite simple: when you're running 8.5x11 sheets and then have to run a 9x11 tab, the system takes a revolution of the belt to re-set for a 9" sheet and then again to re-set for the 8.5" sheet. Tab optimization simply sets the entire system for a 9" sheet, which eliminates these re-set pauses before and after each tab.

This is all documented in the iGen3 manual. No mystery here.

You didn't answer my question. 8.5x11 and 8.5x14 rotated to run the 8.5 inch path (so no wider then 8.5x8.5 square) what speed does that run at? Is it the same speed as 12x18?

There are many reasons people run rotated. Heck we had several times where our service techs told us to rotate the sheet due to curl and jamming issues or lines at 12 to 14 inches in the fuser or imaging areas where rotating the sheet was a quick fix. It ran much better short edge feed. Just significantly slower.

I am curious as if the smartspeed option speeds up anything greater then 9 inches? So a rotated letter or legal, will those run at the same speed as a 12x18 sheet?

I am running a standard sheet size of 12x13. This is what the work dictates. I believe it is 9 pitch. This is also the only form that XRX certifies for lightweight stock.

Cool, that is an interesting size. Is that then 1 click or 2?

What weight stock are you running that it requires Xerox to certify it at that weight? I hadn't heard that before.

I'm not sure of the pricing structure of the 12" sheet. We are running a 45# book stock (67 GSM). The ability to run this light of a stock in achieved through XRX's TEBP (Teachers Edition Book Publishing) Kit which includes different duplex turn transports and a long list of NVM's affecting fusing temperatures, nip speeds, and registration timings.

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