High Quantity Photo Quality Borderless Laser Printers

[tizeye]

Wow, that's a switch going full circle. Starting with trying to keep below $1000 in the in the $600-800 range, resisting $2000 if possible, then "ideal" $6000 to $8000. I though it was a typo until clicked the link. I hope this is a joke. My first thought was, while you never mentioned price, 'how much profit are you making on job of 25 custom flash cards' and how many jobs do you need with 100% of your profit to reach the $8000 break even?

First and foremost, since this is an Apple forum, footnote on the Canon brochure states "Operation can only be guaranteed on a PC with pre-installed Windows® 10 (64/32-bit), Windows 8.1 (64/32-bit), Windows 7 (64/32-bit)." As I searched for dealers to confirm the price/availability, had a link to the users manual. There it confirmed only had drivers for Microsoft Windows.

Purchase? The dealer search confirmed that this is not a retail offering...even on Canon's site, and no price given, just quotes given to corporate accounts. Typical purchasers are business supply firms who then lease with maintenance contracts to individual businesses. Very similar business models to Xerox and Ricoh copiers you see in large offices and the individual under contract who comes around and services them when they are down. Even the lease is not cheap as they need to return on the machine investment plus profit.

 

[deep diver]

You had already found something that meets your parameters. I'm not sure why you keep looking. You appear to be looking for a business quality specialty printer at the price of a better than average, but not top of the line, consumer product. That simply does not exist. Your choice is between price on the one hand and quality/functionality on the other. You can't have both. At some point your over analysing this will get in the way of you actually moving forward.

 

[davecom]

Thanks for the replies. I just don't have any background in printing beyond ordering from printers large volumes of the same thing. I truly have no idea how to economically print custom cards where every single card is custom and do so at a decent quality. I'm exploring every option. I'm talking to local printers in person and talking to printer companies on the phone and posting here. I'm learning—and there really is no obvious good resource for learning all at once about this. Google searches for things like "best cardstock printer" come up with useless filler blogs probably generated by GPT-3 or something.

You're right at some point indecision becomes a problem, but ultimately from the business dealers I'm talking to these printers are non-returnable. So if I buy say the Epson for $1200, I can't return it. I rather spend $5000 on something I know is the right thing than gamble on $1200 in some ways. There's a part of me that's like maybe you should just buy high-end consumer printers, try them out, and if they don't work reliably for this application return them. At least they can be returned.

 

[deep diver]

Thanks for the replies. I just don't have any background in printing beyond ordering from printers large volumes of the same thing.

Perhaps this is the real problem.

 

[davecom]

We all have to start somewhere. I can build the software. In fact I've already built most of it. I need to figure this part out. I'll figure it out eventually. Thanks for your help along the way.

 

[Apple fanboy]

We all have to start somewhere. I can build the software. In fact I've already built most of it. I need to figure this part out. I'll figure it out eventually. Thanks for your help along the way.

My advice is look to outsource this. Any printer you buy will only be the start. You’ll need to think about ink, card, colour management etc. It’s a can of worms. Where as a printer will already know all this.

 

[r.harris1]

@davecom What part of the flow for your custom flash cards does your software control? Is it the interaction with the printer (as in literal device) or the interaction with the customer? Or both? Something else? I'm assuming with the customer to collect the specs/order. I ask not asking because I'm wanting to pry into the business model but some of that knowledge may help guide the discussion. For me, Apple fanboy's advice is spot on - a lot of that side of things has been solved and may be a matter of building relationships.

Obviously if you're doing something like collecting customer specs/request/info and spitting it out to a printer that's another kettle of wassnames entirely

Cheers,
Ray

 

[davecom]

Thanks you're all making good points. I think I will need to spend more time with my local printers and see where that leads me. I will also reach out to some local photographers I know.

To answer your questions, r.harris—I have written the "interaction with the customer" side—i.e. collecting customer photos, customization options, money, website, user accounts, etc. and I'm ready to write "the produce final proofs for the printer" side... but yeah need to know what kind of printer I'm making final proofs for. At the beginning I was looking into online print APIs and sending each order up to them. But not a single one was economical (looking at close to $1/print which if you're selling flash cards is not doable). That led me down this road of trying to do it myself or find a local printer. I'm hearing overwhelming from many of you to keep pursuing the local printer avenue so I will... early things I've learned seem like they will not want to do small custom jobs economically either, which I totally get, but I'll keep trying different places.