CET printer - Caldera?

[ChrisN]

Is there anyone out there running a CET Q5 with Caldera? Our dealer quoted us Onyx ProductionHouse mainly because they are not a Caldera reseller, but I wanted to give Caldera a shot because I've "heard" a lot of good things about it on here. So I downloaded demos of both ProductionHouse and GrandRIP+, and in my limited messing around, I am liking Caldera better. The print/cut workflow seems to have more configurability than Onyx offers (cut path offset, for example), and Caldera offers contour nesting and APPE. If we would go with Caldera, we would not get support from the printer dealer, though. Does Caldera have good support? How well does it work with your printer? Does CET give good support if you have issues between Caldera & the printer?

Also, if any merchant members on here would like to send me quotes for GrandRIP+ (including GrandCUT, EasyMedia, Contour nesting, etc.), PM me for my email. Onyx does not have a trade-in for ProductionHouse, but if Caldera would, that may tip the scales in favor price wise.

 

[ONYX Mgt]

Who is your ONYX reseller?

 

[Ditchmiester]

I traded my Onyx Thrive in for Caldera to run my two HP L260s and Caldera gave me somewhere around 1000 off the price for trading in my software. Also gave me 60 days to send it in while we made the transition from Onyx to Caldera.

 

[ChrisN]

Who is your ONYX reseller?

Sent you a PM.

I traded my Onyx Thrive in for Caldera to run my two HP L260s and Caldera gave me somewhere around 1000 off the price for trading in my software. Also gave me 60 days to send it in while we made the transition from Onyx to Caldera.

That's nice to know that they give you some time to trade in.

One thing my boss doesn't like about Caldera is that it doesn't run on Windows, which we use exclusively here. How does your workflow operate between Windows and Caldera? We are a smaller shop and would start out with Caldera driving one printer, but with Caldera's capabilities, we could add our other printers in the future.

 

[guitarguy69]

We are a PC design to Linux based Caldera and run 20 printers. Couldn't be happier with the choice to use Caldera, zero issues.

 

[Ditchmiester]

One thing my boss doesn't like about Caldera is that it doesn't run on Windows, which we use exclusively here. How does your workflow operate between Windows and Caldera? We are a smaller shop and would start out with Caldera driving one printer, but with Caldera's capabilities, we could add our other printers in the future.

We bought a Mac Mini and installed it on there. The great thing about Caldera is you don't need a high horsepower computer to run it.

We were exclusively a PC Shop until we switched to Caldera. That was our First Mac in the Shop. It wasn't hard at all either save stuff to the network or use the hot folders to drop the artwork into for printing. We get way better and consistent colors and quality coming out of Caldera. The other thing we love is the print-to-cut out of caldera it runs our Summa way better than Onyx ever did. You have a lot more control.

 

[ChrisN]

We are a PC design to Linux based Caldera and run 20 printers. Couldn't be happier with the choice to use Caldera, zero issues.

We bought a Mac Mini and installed it on there. The great thing about Caldera is you don't need a high horsepower computer to run it.

We were exclusively a PC Shop until we switched to Caldera. That was our First Mac in the Shop. It wasn't hard at all either save stuff to the network or use the hot folders to drop the artwork into for printing. We get way better and consistent colors and quality coming out of Caldera. The other thing we love is the print-to-cut out of caldera it runs our Summa way better than Onyx ever did. You have a lot more control.

Hopefully i can use your experiences to allay my boss's fears about running a "foreign" OS in our Windows shop! I also found that the print/cut workflow is better than Onyx.

Still, anyone have specific experience running a CET printer from Caldera?

 

[nate]

Hopefully i can use your experiences to allay my boss's fears about running a "foreign" OS in our Windows shop! I also found that the print/cut workflow is better than Onyx.

Still, anyone have specific experience running a CET printer from Caldera?

We run our entire shop, including a CET Q5 on Caldera. I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[ChrisN]

We run our entire shop, including a CET Q5 on Caldera. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Cool, good to hear that. Did CET provide you with profiles or did you make your own? Does CET provide good support for using what I am gathering is not their first choice of RIP software?

 

[nate]

Cool, good to hear that. Did CET provide you with profiles or did you make your own? Does CET provide good support for using what I am gathering is not their first choice of RIP software?

I would say cet is very happy to have caldera.....

 

[davecich]

Christ,

We support both. we are neutral on the decision. I would just make sure that you specify on the preinstall what you decide to go with. Right now, customers choose Onyx 80% of the time, so we test at the factory with Onyx unless noted.

Dave cich