MyPrintingTutorials.com-Printing Tutorials Offset Printing Digital Printing A Guide to Offset and Digital Printing

A good site that I have found for purchasing ink cartridges is www.inkcartridges.com. The website offers  cartridges for all types of printers of all brands. Laser toner, ink cartridges and printer ink are available at wholesale prices. You can search their catalog for the ink that you require and alongside you will find all the printers that are compatible with it. Shipping is free for all orders of $50 or more within the continental US. Ordering is easy and online. Credit Card as well as Paypal is accepted. You will find cartridges, toners and ribbons of brands such as Hp, Apple, Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson, IBM, Kodak, Konica Minolta, Lexmark, NEC, Okidata, Panasonic, Ricoh, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, Xerox and more. If you are not satisfied with the purchase there is a money back system where you can get refund for the purchase. InkCartridges.com is a one stop shop for all printing ink requirements.

Posted under Digital Printing

The internet is probably the quickest and easiest way to shop for printer ink, as well as being the place where you’ll find the cheapest prices. The way you go about finding the best deals is to use a search engine and be specific in your search criteria, this will give you more relevant result and make comparing the prices between the different retailers much quicker and easier. If you’re looking for ink cartridges for an Epson Stylus SX600FW an example of a specific search would be to search for “Epson Stylus SX600FW ink” instead of just searching for simply “Epson ink”. Searching for “Epson ink” will most probably find you the same websites as “Epson Stylus SX600FW ink” but the results will not be the specific pages on those sites where the ink cartridges for the Stylus SX600FW can be found. By being more detailed with your search criteria you will find the products you need just one click away and this makes deciding which retailers offer the product at the best value for money.

Posted under Printing Ink

It seems there is only one good ink coverage calculator on the internet which is Apfill Ink Coverage Calculator from www.avpsoft.com. If you are a professional printer then you need the pro version which calculates cmyk coverage. If you add the total percentage of cmyk, you get the total ink coverage in percentage with respect to the paper size. It is very easy and convenient. The pro version costs around 99 dollars. It is helpful when you have to give competitive rates without suffering loss.

Posted under Digital Printing

Ricoh’s color copier/printer machines seem to provide a high quality output even from their entry level machines. The newest color copier/printer machine that we bought was the Ricoh Aficio MP 2030. The machine cost around Rs. 2,80,000/-. It may cost less than that in some other places. The drawback of this machine is the high cost per copy. An average A4 size page costs around Rs. 2.5/- at 10 percent coverage. But the output is excellent considering its low price. The maximun printing size is 12″x18″. It can print on various papers such as offset art paper. The use of offset art paper makes the cost of paper very low as digital papers are quite expensive. The printing engine is laser based. Color copy quality is also quite high with close color reprodution of the original. The cost of the color toners comes to around Rs. 8500/- per piece. The black toner is cheaper at around Rs. 2400/-.

Posted under Digital Printing

We recently purchased Ricoh’s black and white entry level copier cum printer Ricoh Aficio MP 1600L. The price of the machine was around Rs. 70,000/-. The cost per page including drum and developer changes cost for an average A4 size document with around 5 percent coverage comes to around 32 paise (Rs. .32/-). This is excluding the cost of paper. An average A4 size copier paper costs around 30 paise or less depending on local prices. The maximun printing size is A3. The drum and developer have to be changed at around every 70,000 impressions. The cost of the drum and developer comes to around Rs. 8000/-. The machine gives very clear and fine prints of text. Photo quality is also not bad. The cost per page is very minimal compared to a black and white laser printer. As a printer we are also using it for technova offset master printout. Toner scatter and other problems start to increase as the run length comes around 70,000. That is when we have to have a complete servicing and change the necessary parts.

Posted under Digital Printing

From the same manufacturer of mug printing machine comes this multi utility printing machine. The process is the same as for mug printing except that the machine is now a flat press instead of the rounded one for mug printing. It can print on even more media and items not mentioned here and they are continuosly coming up with new items which can be printed upon using this machine. The price of the machine comes to Rs. 35,000/-. The printer comes for Rs. 7,000/- and the CISS ink system comes for Rs. 5,000/-. The cost of printing on one t-shirt comes to around Rs. 20/-. The printing is complete multicolor.

Posted under Uncategorized

During the Print Pack 2009, I came across a fascinating mug printing machine. A special type of transfer paper is first printed using an epson printer which uses dye inks. Then the mug which is specially treated for the purpose of printing on it is placed in the mug holder along wiht the paper wrapping it. The holder is capable of passing heat on the mug which causes the print to be transfered to it (mug). The whole process is simple but the prints are excellent. The only drawback could be that it can print on only one size of mug and that also on only the specially treated mugs availble from the company. I don’t remember the name of the manufacturer right now but wil post it as soon as I go through my files. The price of the mug printing machine along with the printer and the ink system was around Rs. 37,000/-. The price of printing one mug comes under Rs. 10/-. I could not enquire the price of the mugs.

Posted under Uncategorized

During the recent Print Pack 2009, Autoprint displayed their new innovation - the Dion 450, a four color printing machine from Autoprint’s own stable. The Dion 450 is a single crown size (15″x20″) printing machine. It is not so automated like other imported machines in India as automation is not so necessary here compared with the additional cost that will fall upon the machine price. The machine comes with the Kompac dampening system on all four units and a powder spary at the delivery end. There are sensors to stop the machine in case of paper jam on any of the blankets. The whole machine is pneumatically controlled and there are no levers for the inking or dampening process. The printing quality is quite nice and with some training any experienced operator should be able to run the machine with ease. On the whole, I would say it is a very good machine with respect to its price and performance ratio. The basic price of the machine is 33,00,000 (Thirty three lakhs).

Posted under Offset Printing

Technova is expected to come out with its own CTP (Computer To Plate) which will cost around Rs. 55,00,000 ( Rs. 55 lakhs) very soon.

Posted under Pre press

Digital Printing has become a very profitable business especially when you have to print in small quantities. Digital printing could mean inkjet or laser printing. As for now the benefit in cost is in laser printing. At the lowest end will be the color laser copiers that are being sold in the market by various manufacturers. At the high end will be the digital production printers offered by companies like Hp and Xerox with printers like the Hp Indigo and the Xerox iGen4. The Hp Indigo starts from about Rs. 8,000,000/- (Eighty Lakhs or Eight Million Rupees). For small printers the Digital presses like Xante Illumina, Xitron Prism and the Xerox DC242 may be more feasible. The Xante Illumina and the Xitron Prism comes under Rs. 800,000/-. The Xerox DC242 starts from Rs. 1,400,000/- (Fourteen lakhs). All these printers print 12″x18″ size paper. The cost per page come around Rs. 8/- irrespective of ink coverage under the company policy where we have to give this amount to them. The cost of digital paper comes to about Rs. 3/- per 12×18 inches sheet. These small digital printing presses are suitable in India for only around maximum 200 tabloid pages per job because the cost of offset color printing is very low here. However for small repeat jobs they are very profitable. The quality of the color copiers at a lower range are not that acceptable for a print shop.

Posted under Digital Printing