Although the 510 has what can best be described as a "checkered past," it is in reality a "pretty good little box." Conceived by "Mother X" and the Xerox engineers in Rochester the 510 ended up in a political squabble and was sent to Japan for manufacture by Fuji Xerox. Fuji took one look at the box and said "not invented here. After wandering in limbo for better than a year while Xerox dealers sold what ever they could get their hands on, "Mother X" in her infinite wisdom decided to bring the little 510 dp home. It is now being "produced" for Xerox under contract by a company in Huntsville, AL. there have been substantial startup up quality problems which we understand are "being worked out." The 510 dp is an innovative system. It can be ordered with or field upgraded from a one roll system to a two or three roll printer. In addition the 510 dp has field upgrade - downgrade capability to switch output capacity from five, seven or ten "D" size prints per minute. This makes the 510 dp a powerful point of use printer with a huge amount of flexibility.
Xerox's decision to marry the 510 dp printer with its Synergix scanner and the PLP inspired Access controller has yielded an effective mid range system. Their brilliant idea of offering a "color Synergix scanner option" for a black and white printer was off the chart. Most people will never effectively use the color scanner but it adds thousands of dollars in revenue to their bottom line. A word to the wise, don't buy the color scanner in less you can really cost justify the added expense.
This is a short run product for Xerox and will probably go out of production sometime in early 2006. The shots in wide format at Xerox are now being called by Fuji Xerox out of Japan and the 510 is obviously not made in Japan. The 510 dp is a good short term investment with very little upward migration path.
This machine is so bad that most of the Xerox dealers in the country have elected not to sell it. The system was designed by Fuji Xerox as a six copy and nine copy per minute solution. It simply does not meet American standards. At its best, which is not good, the machine functions as a wide format copier. It will make multiple copies and reduce and enlarge but the steps required to produce a copy are clumsy and not at all intuitive. In its plotter mode, the machine is at best adequate. The hang up is that in plot mode the output speed is cut in about half. The ultimate debacle is encountered when the 6050/6030 is installed in its "Scan to File" configuration. The explanation give for this is that the systems components are incompatible and that they simply have difficulty talking to each other. In addition to the systems problems this unit has, the purchaser must contend with a machine that is mostly plastic. The 6050/6030 is rated for a monthly output of 4,500 square feet. At this rate it is doubtful if the system will be able to last for the production of 100,000 square feet of copy.
In short, do yourself a favor and stay away from this machine. Shame on you Mother X.
Oh for the days when this once proud company (Xerox) actually made something, besides hot air. The print engine for the 721 p is in reality a KIP 8000. The KIP 8000 is presently the fastest wide format printer in the world. It is robust and easy to maintain. Operating costs are low and print quality is excellent. The controller for the 721 p is made by PLP which is good solid technology. The Synergix scanner is a Xerox product and congratulations Xerox, you got this one right.
This is the "little brother" of the 8830 family. The principal differences are that Xerox slowed the output speed of the printer from six to four "D" size prints per minute by installing an interrupter that shuts the print function down for a few seconds between prints. This was purely a move to differentiate and de-feature the product. The 8825 family has the option of one or two rolls of media as apposed to the three roll capacity of the 8830. In all other respects the 8825 and the 8830 are twins. As with the 8830, the 8825 is the "home grown" digital print engine from "Mother X." Xerox took their "finest hour," the 3050 analog copier, and turned it into a one or two roll digital plotter. Initially introduced as a stand alone plotter the "boys from Rochester" married a modified Vidar scanner to the printer which gave them scan to print capability. They have dubbed this the 8825 DDS (for Digital Document System). A button panel on the scanner allows the operator to perform the engineering copier functions of reduction and enlargement and multiple copy. Archiving of scanned images is accomplished using a "scan to network" feature in which the scanned images is transferred to a folder on the network for printing from a system computer. Some users find this "scan to network" feature clumsy when compared with the "scan to file" capability of the KIP and Oce' products.
In its later manifestations Xerox has ditched the Vidar scanner and replaced it with their own Xerox manufactured, Synergix scanner, which is a "world class" product. Their AccXES controller and software was developed by PLP and appears to be stable and productive.
The 8825 and the 8830 have been replaced by the new 510. Xerox has had huge manufacturing difficulties with 510. Due to these problems the 510 is in shot supply. As a result many Xerox dealers are resurrecting their 8825 and 8830 machines and selling them as used equipment until the 510 becomes readily available.
W 57" x H 43" x D 23"
36" x 100' Max., 4-1/2" x 5-1/2" Min.
Electronic collation; forward and reverse; last scan replacement; rescale and reprint without rescanning; 999 copies from a set of 100 standard E-size drawings.
Originally code named "Rhino", as in Rhinoceros, the 8830 is the "home grown" digital print engine from "Mother X." Xerox has taken their "finest hour", the 3050 analog copier, and turned it into a three roll digital plotter. Initially introduced as a stand alone plotter the "boys from Rochester" married a modified Vidar scanner to the printer which gave them scan to print capability. They have dubbed this the 8830 DDS (for Digital Document System). A button panel on the scanner allows the operator to perform the engineering copier functions of reduction and enlargement and multiple copy. Archiving of scanned images is accomplished using a "scan to network" feature in which the scanned images are transferred to a folder on the network for printing from a system computer. Some users find this "scan to network" feature clumsy when compared with the "scan to file" capability of the KIP and Oce' products.
In its later manifestations Xerox has ditched the Vidar scanner and replaced it with their own Xerox manufactured, Synergix scanner which is a "world class" product. Their AccXES controller and software was developed by PLP and appears to be stable and productive.
The 8825 and the 8830 have been replaced by the new 510. Xerox has had huge manufacturing difficulties with 510. Due to these problems the 510 is in short supply. As a result many Xerox dealers are resurrecting their 8825 and 8830 machines and selling them as used equipment until the 510 becomes readily available.
The 8850 is a further evolution of the tried and true Xerox 3050 print engine. At ten "D" size prints per minute, the 8850 is a speeded up version of the "time proven, tried and true" 8830. By coupling the Xerox manufactured Synergix scanner with their own software and AccXES controller the 8850 has the opportunity to be a "heavy duty player" in the upper end of the mid-range market.
W 57" H 43" D 23"
Auto port sensing, Auto data format recognition, Auto scaling, Auto rotation, Auto size detection, Auto roll select and switch , Remote printer administration, Prioritized job queuing, Remote job queue management, Electronic collation, 9 pen palettes (256 pens each), 64 pen patterns, including 15 user-definable patterns, Plot labeling with automatic naming and time/date generation, Banner pages, Page composition/plot overlay, Plot stamping with user-downloadable stamps, 10 user setups, 256 grayscales, Media mismatch management, Plot nesting.
The 8855 is in reality a KIP print engine, originally introduced with a KIP high-speed scanner and PLP software. The unit was later sold with a Vidar scanner and ultimately with their own Synergix scanner and proprietary AccXES controller and software. There are new, faster printers (KIP 8000 series) that are becoming available that will force this system into retirement as a front line product, but the 8855 is still good solid second tear technology and possibly the best bang for the buck in the market today, if you don't have to have the latest and greatest.
W 54" H 37" D 39"
Standard - TCP/IP with lpr/lpd.
This machine is bad news all the way around. Xerox took the Fuji developed 8180 which was a twenty-four inch output, redline machine. The 8180 would print black and red at sixty feet per minute. They spliced a one foot section in the printer, slowed it down to forty feet a minute and tried to market the machine against the Oce' 9800. The machine turned out to be "service hog," it requires almost perpetual maintenance. The end user might live with this except that Xerox only trained a few techs to service the machine which resulted in extensive down time and the eventual cancellation of the product.