A Waterfall of Praise for New Envelope Press

As soon as Devin Godfrey saw the Colordyne 1600-S printer in action at last year’s Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) conference, she was sold.

Devin Godfrey says the Colordyne’s low cost, high quality and diversity of options all led to her in-plant’s decision to purchase the printer.

“We were using a Pitney Bowes DP40s color printer for envelopes, and the cost of consumables was extremely high,” explains the manager of digital print and mail at Hanover, N.H.-based Dartmouth College Printing and Mailing Services (DPMS). “The Colordyne, on the other hand, was about 6/10 of a cent per impression, and the quality was great, especially for the size of the machine.”

When she and her production manager saw the digital press running, their attention was drawn to the press’ Memjet Waterfall printhead technology. Each printhead fires millions of ink drops per second.

“Instead of using a fuser to fuse toner on, ink droplets fall down,” she explains, “and when the paper comes out the other end, it’s completely dry.” Because there is no heat drying, less energy is used, and there are no noxious odors or fumes.

Godfrey and her team — which includes six full-time and three temporary employees — prepared a couple of quotes for the senior vice president of campus services, and the Colordyne’s low cost stood out above the rest.

“Even though the cost was low, the quality was high, so they allowed us to go with this machine,” she says.

The digital press was installed in September and has impressed operators and customers alike.

“We can do anything from letterheads to any sort of envelope, including full coverage on the envelopes,” Godfrey says. The in-plant is the college’s preferred vendor for envelopes, business cards and letterheads, so this diversity is a huge plus.

On average, the shop prints 125,000 envelopes for faculty and staff. Its customers also include the graduate and professional schools of Dartmouth College, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and the Upper Valley community at large. With its combined mail center, DPMS’ total annual sales were $801,000 last year.

“The technicians we worked with were very customer oriented,” Godfrey relays. Vivid Data Group, which installed the machine, flew out from Memphis to set it up and provided training.

“The fact that they came here instead of just doing a webinar was really impressive,” Godfrey acknowledges. “And so far, the Colordyne has lived up to all of our expectations.”