OCE Plotters

Any experience or opinions would be welcome (unless you are a company rep ).

We are looking at getting a new OCE. I was looking at the 325, 360, and 750 models. Anyone have any comments on any of these machines?

Thanks.

We had the TDS9600 and 600 for many years and they served us well. Traded them in and we are now on the 750 and the CW500.

Man... it's been years now... but I was "the" plotter guru at a company I worked at years ago. I was tasked to go on the hunt for a new plotter for the company. I sent to four brand's showroom and tested several plotters at each location. The brand's were OCE, KIP, Xerox and Ricoh. OCE had the nicest showroom and the most expensive plotters, but, at the time, nothing could be the quality or price of the Xerox. I think they closed the doors to their wide formats though.

Here's my suggestion. You have two things that truly matter, and that's toner yield and toner waste. Make sure you're getting the greatest amount of toner yield with the least amount of toner waste. The Xerox and KIP had practically zero waste. Something in the design of their engine used up 99% of the toner in the bottle. So the expensive toner packs actually lasted. The Ricoh and OCE would waste about 50-60%, as did most wide format plotters at the time.

Another thing is to test the "screened" quality. For instance, I'm an MEP guy so all my architectural backgrounds are screened and my MEP elements are black linework. The Xerox and KIP (which had the same engine I believe) had very good, smooth screened plotting, and the OCE and Ricoh had some form of dots to try and mimic screened linework.

But this was about nine years ago. Technology has changed, so I'm positive my assessment is very dated by now. You should have local reps around your area. Call and bring a USB drive and try your own company's jobs and print them yourself. That's what I did.

Hope this helps.

-TZ

Thanks for the input!

Oce Plotwave 350 owner here. It's a workhorse for sure. Super fast printing and killer scanner.

We are rocking a OCE TCS500. Its the only one i have real experience with. So far so good, but its showing its age. If we dont regularly run prints through it, it gets pretty cranky. Price the consumables when you are making you decision.

We are at about 12,000 sq ft a month on (3) HP Plotters right now.