Xante vs. Epson

[southpawP8NTR]

I recently bought out another shop and in the package was a Xante Screenwriter 4 and a Epson Stylus pro 7600. I currently use my roland for my positives and really have no problems with doing so. My question is I don't think that I need both, so which should I keep? I really have no experience with either.
1. Best performing?
2. Ink/Toner replacement costs?
3. Media costs?
Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[killergraphics]

The laser will be much cheaper to run and will work great on most everything except very fine or process work and you can print the positives to vellum, much cheaper than film.
They make a laser printer film that is good for close register stuff and does not shrink much. But a laser because of the heat rollers will always shrink some.
The epson is as good as a $10,000 image setter, has to have it's own film and HAS to be used often to keep the heads from drying out.
If you are not doing very high end printing I would sell the epson and do a head purge before storing or shipping. You will have to have a rip for the inkjet also. Ghostscript is free, but hard to use and the others are $400 and up. The xante is postscript so you do not need a rip.

 

[southpawP8NTR]

Killer, is Versaworks a compatible rip? I do my seps and halftones in photoshop.

 

[southpawP8NTR]

Oh and the package has Fast RipXL with it. The guy has everything, packaging, receipt but can't find the dongle. Frustrated with that whole situation.

 

[killergraphics]

I don't know anything about Versaworks. Maybe one of the sign guys will help on that.
I do not use fast rip, but know some who do. They are not in business any longer and what little support is third party and without a dongle, it will not be of any use.

 

[Mosh]

I have not figured out how to control halftone size in versa,

 

[killergraphics]

Mosh
like I said I do not use versa, but I would have to think it would be like any other output software.
Set the 1/2 tone shade by % of color ie 30% or 50% or what ever and then before the output set the lpi , angles and shape of dot.
Lower lpi is a bigger dot and higher lpi is a smaller dot.

 

[Mosh]

When we output from corel to our postscript laser we can change the 1/2 tone settings, versa does not have that option. At least that I have found.