Do we need wide format plotter and SCANNER?

As you all know my company seems to be receptive to
wide format plotter..... maybe the HP 500.

Im wondering how much more we would have to spend to
get wide format SCANNING as well?

We have some older prints.... D size... that would sure
be nice to have in electronic format....and we are in a
very small town with no place like Kinkos to get
something that big scanned. Hence the need to do it in
house.

So bottom line.... is a separate wide format
plotter.... and separate wide format scanner a better
way to go? Or do they make a "combo" type machine
worth looking into? If yes..... roughly what kind
price range are we looking at for such a device?

 

HP sells a version of the HP800 plotter with a scanner :

Im wondering..... what abt us "leasing" such a combo
unit?? Isn't there big tax advantages to easing stuff
rather than owning it?

It occurred to me that i want to cover all my bases
BEFORE giving a final recommendation to my company on
what to buy or do. Hence the question abt the combo
units.....and the leasing idea.

 

The only item could find was the HP 815mfp. Suggested retail over $20,000.

- jim

 

Our repro does our scans for us. Who does you final prints? You might see
if they can scan them for you.

They charge $5 for D and burn to disc, or I can have them email it for $3
instead. I could never justify the cost of a scanner that size at those
rates.

 

<snip>

If I remember right you are in Missori, and you should be able to send the
paper prints out to a copy/repo shop in a larger city. There is no way you
could justify purchasing a large format scanner for a onetime job when you
can probably have the files scanned for $2-$5 a sheet plus $50 for Fedex.

Brent

 

What do you intend doing with the scanned prints?

--

Regards,

Ian A. White, CPEng

WAI Engineering
Sydney 2000
Australia

Ph: +61 418 203 229
Fax: +61 2 9622 0450
Home Page: www.wai.com.au

 

Check Contex' assortment for a monochrome model; that will be cheaper than
color (that you probably don't need).

http://www.contex.com/scanners/overview/default.htm

Govert

 

What do you intend doing with the scanned prints

Would probably just save them as TIFFS or PDF......and
not necessarily convert then from raster to vector.

Basically it would be nice to have them in electronic
form...... try to reduce some of the "paper" around
here.

 

In that case rather than spend a large amount of money on the equipment
and then getting up to speed on it, it might be better to get quotes
from a scanning service to do this for you. There are many companies
that got on the bandwagon when large format scanners first became
available. They were sold on it as they were convinced that after they
could scan and vectorise their drawings they could recover the cost of
the unit by doing this for others. Well, after discovering that a
vectorised drawing could not be trusted simply because even with the
best most accurate vectorising software and scanner, the final accuracy
could never be better than the accuracy with which the drawing was first
prepared and then the dimensional stability of the paper or film, there
was no real market for them. I know of a number of large companies that
spent many tens of thousands of dollars on this and it is now all packed
away in storage. They do not have the heart to dump it.

So get a large format plotter if you can put together a justification
for this to plot you CAD work, but as far as the scanner side is
concerned, you might want to look more carefully into it.

--

Regards,

Ian A. White, CPEng

WAI Engineering
Sydney 2000
Australia

Ph: +61 418 203 229
Fax: +61 2 9622 0450
Home Page: www.wai.com.au