Any other ideas for 11X17 printing

Do we get a seperate printer for color & black & white? Laser or inkjet.
We print 11x17 construction plans (about 100 pages) and b&w. Also do Color
11X17 sheets for reports etc. We have a hp2600 now that is only a couple
years old and it has bit the dust. So we need something to replace it. It
was fine for the color reports but was unable to handle the high output of
the construction plans. Any ideas would be helpful. Looking at the
hp5500dn, but it;s pretty high dollar.

Thanks,
Todd

 

Todd,

For 11x17 construction plans set we send out to a print shop. If you are
making full sized plans/copies you can have them photo reduce the 11x17 and
then you have any exact copy of the approved for construction. We have
found this is alot easier than trying to produce large volumes in house.

If this is possbiltiy then get a 11x17 injet and use this for your color
reports. You are probably not printing as many copies for reports and an
inkjet should be able to handle your output. We had a HP2600 and died after
18 months so i wouldn't recommend another unit. Right now I am sending all
of my reports to a print shop and they are doing digital color copies. I
send the report PDF with it layed out exactley how I want it to come out and
I even intermix letter, legal and 11x17 size sheets. Copies come back bound
and I just pass the cost onto the client. It ends up being cheaper for us
and the client as we don't have nearly the overhead supporting high speed
copiers, color printers and other equipment.

Brent

 

I'd suggest getting the simple low end b/w 17x11 laser. I looked and the cheapest one was the HP5100 at $1439.99. That's really not all that bad. If you have a printing company do it, you have the added cost and inconvenience of getting the stuff to them. The printer will pay for itself several times over before you even begin to wear it out. I'd be happy for any kind of 17x11 laser around here, but we don't do enough volume to barely try and justify it. I have a DJ1120C that's been working great for several years, but it's getting slow by todays standards.