KeepItPrinting.com

[KIPDOCTOR]

Yesterday I had the opportunity to compare the HP 8000 Pagewide to the KIP 860 on a head to head basis. Coming soon is my full opinion on these two products. I will post this info as information and opinion only. Being that I am semi retired now and getting into unrelated fields, I have absolutely no stake in either one of these products. I do not wish to sell or service either of these. This is more a curiosity review as to what is happening in this quickly evolving color market. More news to follow soon.
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What we have gained in technology, we have lost in humanity.

[KIPDOCTOR]

Sorry for the delay on this , the Doc has been going nuts lately.
Let me just start by saying how fortunate and blessed I truly find myself. If timing is everything, then I have everything. I entered this business soon after Darris McCord brought the very first Shacoh 920 wide format printer to the United States and started Shacoh USA, of which I was an early team member. That was the first 36 inch printer to blow away the Xerox 2080.

A few years later I was a part of the Shacoh USA debut of the KIP 3800. The very first digital wide format printer. I was amazed as was most of the market.

Later KIP introduced the KIP 8000. I installed the first two units sold in the country. In my opinion the very best machine ever to come out of KIP to date.

I thought I had seen everything this HDP toner technology could be. In a way I was right. It was a wild ride, one that I was proud to be a part of and a part of all the people I have met along the way. Now, as I prepare to semi retire and move away from this business something new comes to the market that has excited the crap out of me again.
Yes the HP Pagewide is that product.
I feel very strange talking this product up, as a service guy that made his career on providing service on high maintenance printers, here is one that stands to put all of us service guys out to pasture. That's hard for me, I remember being told by the president of KIP that service is the necessary evil. No one likes service costs but it was needed. On these HP I just don't see the need. Having no stake in the selling of these units and of course no stake in the service, I feel I must be honest to my followers that have provided me this amazing ride.
Toner is dead.
Yes, I just said that.
Lot's will disagree with me on this, but change is always tough.
This HP Pagewide technology is all that. It's not that the KIP Color products are bad, they are not. But the HP is just THAT good. The print quality, the build of the machine, the simpleness of the machine, the speed ( oh the speed!)
The KIP color is good, how could it not be? It is really just an oversized Canon Color copier. They were good. When they were new. When they ran right. When the tech had just serviced it. But these, HPs should look good long after many miles with most likely a ton less service. That is key in this competitive market. The HP will help develop the color Arch and Eng document demand in a way the KIP could never do. Everyone knows HP. They are huge. They have been doing color forever. How long has KIP been doing color? Color is a completely different market than what KIP is used to. Kip does not even make a fast printer anymore. Sad. I loved the KIP products of old. They had their run. HP will drive the next chapter. It is going to be fun to watch even if I am watching from the sidelines. Actually might be more fun from there. I won't have the headaches.

So that's just the tip of it for now. And of course this is just one man's opinion. Take it for what it's worth. I 'd love to know your thoughts either way. Thanks for listening.

I do want to clarify one point, in no way am I advocating that you do not need a service contract with these new machines. They will break and parts will fail. Expensive parts. The point I am trying to make is that due to the simple design service will not be as frequent as the old toner based machines. Hence the service contracts will be less expensive. I highly recommend if you buy one of these units you still should protect yourself with a service contract from a quality service provider.
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What we have gained in technology, we have lost in humanity.

Last edited by KIPDOCTOR on Fri Jul 22, 2016 7:02 pm; edited 1 time in total

[mark in vegas]

We just finished installing 2 HP 8000's. Fast and no toner, no LED printhead.
HP's software is still buggy but they seem to be ironing out the issues so far. Did I mention that they're FAST. On plain paper the blacks aren't really black but that's to be expected on an inkjet.
_________________
Regards,
Mark
RVN 68-69
It's so nice to be insane
No one asks you to explain

[awtech]

What is the differences between the 4000, 4500 and 8000?

What are their MSRPs?

[TXReproShop]

How about some prices on ink cartridges and printheads also. Local HP dealer here will not give out any cost(s) on the machine unless you attend a demo session that is some 50 miles away for me and they will not give out "consumable" cost until you commit to purchase once you attend the demo.

[KIPDOCTOR]

HP Consumables list pricing for the HP8000

Black ink $150
Color ink $240
Printhead $600
Cleaning container $46
maint cartridge $61

Est consumable cost per sq ft Per HP estimates

B&W Lines $0.006
Color Lines $0.008
Color image low density $0.046
Color image high density$0.126
_________________
What we have gained in technology, we have lost in humanity.

[cmwade77]

I just post a fairly detailed review under this thread:
http://keepitprinting.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?p=27523#27523

I have put in prices as best I can, HP and our dealer are both very insistent about not posting prices of the machines. But I will say it is very similar to what the KIP 9900 was and the speed of the HP Pagewide XL 8000 is 30 D size per minute vs 22 D size per minute on the KIP 9900.

As for costs of maintenance items and ink, you can see that here:
http://sourcegraphics.com/supplies/by-product/5928/hp-pagewide-xl-8000-printer
NOTE: This is not our dealer, but this page has prices for these items and is publicly viewable, so I won't get in trouble from our dealer or HP for posting it.

Sorry if I should have posted it here instead.

Also, some have asked about the printheads and how often they are cleaned. They are cleaned after a certain number of plots, but if at all possible never during the middle of a print job, even large print jobs. The only time it seems to do so is if the quality is degrading and it has to do so in order to fix it.

As for the software, I don't really find any bugs in it, other than not being able to install the license manager on a VMWare server, just lacking a good unified accounting feature.

[cmwade77]

KIPDOCTOR wrote:

HP Consumables list pricing for the HP8000 Black ink $150 Color ink $240 Printhead $600 Cleaning container $46 maint cartridge $61 Est consumable cost per sq ft Per HP estimates B&W Lines $0.006 Color Lines $0.008 Color image low density $0.046 Color image high density$0.126

We are actually seeing our consumable costs slightly lower than this so far. We are seeing B&W and Color running about the same per Sq. Ft. at around $0.007 with the coverage area we are testing with, which I am told is about 10% higher coverage than what these numbers were tested with, but then again these drawings have a mix of B&W and color on them.

The color image high density though is pretty much spot on for the pricing.

HP also has a special paper that reduces the ink usage by about 25%, so I am waiting on the pricing for the paper to determine if it would be worth using it or not.

[KIPDOCTOR]

Posting Chris's comments in the the other thread here also.

cmwade77 wrote:

These most definitely are being sold, we just replaced our KIP 8000 that was dying with this on Monday. Excellent: Plot quality is amazing, especially halftoning/shading Color is amazing in its quality The speed is absolutely incredible It is great to be able to have 6 rolls loaded at a time Love being able to continue plotting even when changing ink, although we haven't needed to do this yet and probably won't anytime soon. Good: The machine is great, very sturdy and well built. Just the feel of the machine is much better than any KIP Completely silent when in standby The pagewide software is overall very well written and much less buggy than the KIP Print or Request software and even checks to make sure your plots will plot correctly with your settings and won't cut something off, etc. Ok: The Pagewide software is well designed, but lacks unified accounting, so you have to work around it by naming jobs sent to the plotter with no way to force the user to select. Bad: Machine is quite loud when it is actually plotting and is in a small room. Ugly: The licensing setup for the Pagewide software is cumbersome at best and cannot be install on a server that is running on VMWare. Really, our only major complaint about the machine itself is that the it is loud when actually plotting, but it goes to virtually silent as soon as it stops and completely silent shortly after that. As for the software, it does need some work for accounting. _________________________ Now let's talk about costs: Machine: Right about the same price as what our most recent quote on a KIP 9900 was, but the KIP 9900 only had 4 rolls of course. Paper cost: The same ($0.0150/Sq. Ft.) since they both use the same kind of paper, although you can reduce ink costs by using HP paper, we are still pricing out the difference. Maintenance cost (approximate based on life expectancy of printheads, etc.): $0.0020/Sq. Ft. (The KIP 9900 has an estimated cost of $0.0130 based on similar criteria) Ink cost: $0.005/Sq. Ft. (KIP 9900 Toner is $0.009/Sq. Ft. for the exact same prints, except that was B&W only) The ink costs are based off of an actual set of prints that was sent to both for testing purposes and exact costs are from the accounting software. Although, I am taking the word of a dealer (not the one that sold us the HP, but one that wanted to sell us the KIP 9900) on the KIP 9900 costs for these plots. Additionally, all ink costs are assuming that I would be paying full price for the ink without negotiating a better price. The KIP 9900 cost was based off the dealer's cost for the toner, not what we actually would have had to pay with their markup, so the KIP cost could even be slightly higher than that and the HP cost may be slightly lower. So overall, factoring in the machine cost, along with the life expectancy of the plotters, the maintenance and ink/toner costs, we end up with an average cost of: KIP 9900 - $0.0674/Sq. Ft. HP Pagewide 8000 - $0.0507/Sq. Ft. If you do a modest 25,000 Sq. Ft./month, you are looking at the HP being about $400 cheaper per month than the KIP 9900. And considering that KIP has discontinued the 9900, this isn't necessarily a great comparison anymore, it's just the closest we could come when we started looking to replace the KIP 8000.[/list]

Thanks Chris for posting this. It mirrors my feelings exactly. This is very bad news for KIP.
As I said before, toner is dead.
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What we have gained in technology, we have lost in humanity.

[cmwade77]

Yeah, I really do think Toner is dead and really, it has HP behind it, who is no slouch when it comes to quality machines.

And considering KIP doesn't have anything that comes anywhere close to matching this, especially with the 9900 being discontinued.

[Tinyminime]

Hi guys

No one has mentioned the price! how much is the machine?
Also i know all about ink products... How much is used for cleaning and maintenance daily. I can tell you this is the true cost of running a ink machine. I have asked these questions from HP and after 4 months still no answer!

I hope all are well! all the best for 2016
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I used to have hair!!!

[mark in vegas]

Here in the States all the supplies are free............Just kidding. The XL8000 with 4 rolls hovers around 60k USD. Software and firmware are still kind of wonky.
_________________
Regards,
Mark
RVN 68-69
It's so nice to be insane
No one asks you to explain

[cmwade77]

Tinyminime wrote:

Hi guys No one has mentioned the price! how much is the machine? Also i know all about ink products... How much is used for cleaning and maintenance daily. I can tell you this is the true cost of running a ink machine. I have asked these questions from HP and after 4 months still no answer! I hope all are well! all the best for 2016

As I said, I can't post exact price, but the price is indeed very close to a comparably equipped KIP 9900.

As for supplies and maintenance, the costs are a bit lower than the KIP 9900.

As I said in my post above, factoring in machine cost, life expectancy, maintenance and consumables cost, the cost per Sq. Ft. averages out to:
KIP 9900 - $0.0674/Sq. Ft.
HP Pagewide 8000 - $0.0507/Sq. Ft.

This shows that this system is indeed substantially less expensive.

[Nathan_Snapper]

So What is the MSRP on the machine itself? Or did i miss that?

[CHILLIN]

Mark said the XL8000 4 Roll was around $60,000. Not sure if that's MSRP or retail.