Greetings all

I am an experienced digital print technician (15 yrs) currently training on an iGen3 90. Remarkable machine, just an amazing array of technology, but I'm sure it has the potential to cause an operator an amazing amount of grief and was hoping for a heads-up on what sort of things to watch out for.

I also have a few more specific questions, mostly relating to colour.

1) How stable is the colour (assuming diligent maintenance and frequent calibration) in an actual production environment? Can I count on matching a proof tomorrow that our client approved last week? Can a job from 3 months ago be matched assuming I use the same profile and settings?

2) Is anyone else running a Fiery RIP with their iGen? If so, do you calibrate only with the DocuSP, the Fiery or both. I have recieved some conflicting information concerning this issue.

3) I have created a few custom profiles with the EFI Color Profiler Suite and I can say, with some suprise, that we are quite happy with the results. Xerox claims we can use one profile for all Xerox stocks with good results regardless of stock weight or coating, and that the most important characteristic is the white point of the stock. Not having had the opportunity to really test this yet, can anyone verify this?

4) Is it possible to establish process controls on the iGen that monitor and control colour? I see the EFI Verifier is a nifty tool for measuring and comparing control strips, even generating quality control reports, but is the iGen colour stable enough to attempt this, or would it just be an exercise in frustration?

5) Has anyone ever had a Postscript3 file, created in IllustratorCS3 with lots of compound curves and transparency effects, assembled with InDesignCS3 and printed to a ps file actually corrupt and destroy a default queue on the DocuSP, forcing a deletion and receation of said input queue? I never would have thought it possible, but I had one troublesome file actually wreck my APIA queue today. Due I'm sure to my noobishness, it was somewhat distressing.

6) What's with not being able to feed stock all the way to the bottom of the feeder tray? Are we supposed to just leave reams of paper in there or do people make spacers of some sort?

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I'm deeply involved with this machine at the moment and under a lot of pressure to get it figured out before a large pile of production falls on it late next week. Ah, such is life in the digital print world.

.ps Woo Hoo! First post!

Welcome Kent!

I have been running, maintaining and managing our Igen3 for close to 3 years after running and managing a nexpress for 2 years. Our Igen is set up with the Doc USP. Congrats on the purchase of a great machine. I'll try to answer some of your questions.

1) Color is stable and you really don't have to calibrate as often as you may think. The life of you Developer, PR Belt and Fuser rollers will have the biggest impact and the type of work you run can wear them out faster than others. You will learn to know your machine as you run and will be able to predict the lifes easier. Note that once you have a software upgrade you usually cant hit the color you hit with the old software. Also you will find that you will have several setups that most jobs will run through. Be sure to document the setting and save that information with the old job so you can use the same settings next time.

2) Don't have a Fiery.

3) Just a quick note that Xeroxs stocks are great, just a little pricey compared to some, But worth it in my book.

4) The IGen is very stable. Just don't over color control. Most jobs tend to be one timers anyway.

5) Have not had trouble with a queue crashing, but yes there are tranparency issues you need to watch for. As long as you create your pdfs correctly you should be fine. The problem you will face is that the customer provides the pdf and doesn't know how to handle transparencies. Preflight carefully. Also on a side note watch for Pantone "U" (uncoated colors). Convert them in the preflight stage to avoid problems color matching. You cannot print (at least on the Doc USP) a black drop shadow over a spot color, you will need to convert the spot color first. That should get you started...

6) The Feeder trays tip and tilt to compensate for not flat stocks. That is why you need to build them up. If you are running a feeder out and continuing with another feeder you should not put the spacers in..

Hope some of this helps!

Dale Zahnke

Welcome to the IGEN Family. I am now in my 4th year with our Igen. We also have a DocuSp front end, so I cannot help you with your Fiery questions. My experience is Color is Stable unless you have a press problem. If experience a job that you cannot match color from day to day or within a week or two. You will need to have your Service Techs come in an check your Toner Concentrations, as this is a sign that one or more colors are no longer in spec and your TC level is either High or Low depending on your results. I concur with Dale, the more you run the more familiar you will become with your Igen and after a while you will be able to tell that you have an issue. One thing that was recommended to me and has help us alot along the way is to Keep a Defect Sample book (Since the samples in the Maintenance Manual are virtually unrecognizable - Only once in 4 yrs have I actually had a defect that I could ID from the pictures in the CMM). Identify the Defect and what it took to fix it on the sample sheet, this will save down time and headaches in the future when the problem reoccurs. and trust me you will see the problem again at some point down the line.

Haven't had that particular queue Problem, but I have had jobs cause Hardware faults or System faults on the DocuSp. If the problem persists or reoccurs, I would contact your Software Analyst or the Hotline as this might be a software bug, that would require a Software SPAR Patch.


Good Luck,
Tracey Coke
Univ. of Louisville

Thank you Dale and Tracey for your replies.

After spending a little more time with our iGen3, I have a better idea of the stability of the colour (about 3 deltaE so far) and the importance of maintenance with respect to image quality. If my colour drifts too far out of spec, either I am neglecting something, or there may be a service issue. I am also happily suprised to see that the colour is very similar on all stocks I've tested so far, just like the manufacturer claimed.

The DocuSP does appear to be a more powerful RIP than the Fiery, but lacks some of the extras that come with the EFI software, such as Pitstop, Verifier and the Profiler Suite. At the moment, I am trying to get Verifier to read the DocuSP color check tool, mostly as a reference and an indication of when calibration is necessary. The cct utility seems to have very lenient tolerances and always passes, even after changing the developer and the colour was off by more than 5 deltaE.

We have begun our defect sample book, already we have samples that do not appear in the CMM. I found this to be invaluable when I was operating an Indigo press.

The file that crashed out my DocuSP has been sent off for analysis. It was felt that it was something to do with the Fiery, which was re-installed and updated. I suspect it may be a transparency/spot colour issue, as Dale suggested.

So far I'm very impressed with this machine and looking forward to learning more as I study the documentation and work with it. I appreciate the advice and suggestions you have given me.

Kent