Hi all-
I have a small business where we are starting to work more with Autocad files and I'm in need of a "C" size printer. I have no desire to spend upwards of $18K.

Does anyone here have something more reasonable you are using and would recommend? Mfg and model # would be appreciated.

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85' 300D No inspection, No registration fees, Cheap insurance
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious %$&^."

I have been down this exact road myself.

Once you step up above 11 x 17, you have to pay.

However, Epson makes a very nice printer called the Stylus Color 1520 which will take a 17" x 22" sheet. It only will use 13" of the 17" width for the printout, but, its significantly better than the 11 x 17 size.

I use it for this size for about 10 sheets per month and it's great for that. Most of the time it is printing 11 x 17. It handles the larger size just fine, however, you have to feed it yourself.

I found this one on e-bay for about $150. or so. It did need a bunch of cleaning solution to free up the nozzles, but, overall, I'm pretty pleased with it.

A brand new one was $500.00 last time I checked.

we bought the bottom of the line hp designjet plotter black & white, model
430. less than 2k. does fine work, but not to fast. upgradeable to color for
a few hundred. prints up to 24"x36" or 24" wide rolls. hewett packard makes
good stuff. our last hp plotter lasted 10+ years before it went senile. we do
maybe 20 plots a month.

don

We're using a Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 500. It was purchased almost 4 years ago. Ours handles paper up to 42" wide (24" wide model also available.)

I've been very satisfied with the printer. It's not the "bad boy" of the HP large format lineup (it's near the low end), but it has proven to be eminently suitable for our needs. Those needs include not only line art such as traditional mechanical drawings, but also posters for professional presentations (including text, illustrations, renderings from modeling programs, images from digital cameras, etc.)

Thank you all so far.
Of the models you all suggested above, do any of you have and are using the attachment to accept the rolls of paper, or was it just an option the machine is capable of.
Most of what I'm finding in doing searches for these don't include the mechanism. They only list it as optional, but give no price or availability.

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85' 300D No inspection, No registration fees, Cheap insurance
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious %$&^."

Our HP DesignJet 500 feeds off of a roll, and has an automatic cutter for (1) initially trimming the edge when loading a roll and (2) cutting off each print when it's finished. These are integral parts of the printer, not options. Paper loading, handling, etc. has been trivially easy and reliable. The 42" model comes standard with a stand and a "media bin" to catch the finished prints. The stand and media bin are optional accessories for the 24" model.

One also has the option of loading individual sheets by hand, which works fine, too, but I rarely have occasion to do so.

In addition to the highly satisfactory performance, I was very impressed with how quick and straightforward it was to initially set up the printer, without anybody having to come to install it for us. Mechanical setup was easy. Once it's powered up, the firmware in the printer walks one through the rest of the initial setup. Very, very slick, IMHO.

Software installation wasn't as dazzlingly slick, but it worked fine. That was several years ago, so that may have been polished some more by now.

The Epson 1520 needs the optional Banner Paper kit, C81101.

It can then handle a roll of paper up to 16.5 inch width.

Although it appears to be able to do this task, the setup procedure in the manual looks to be a bit arduous, but, I will say that I have never done it.

Contract the jobs with a nearby, local printer. When your monthly printing costs approach the monthly note on a high-end plotter, buy the plotter.

Bingo ringo.