Ricoh 651 / 751 experience

[vividred]

Is anyone here running a Ricoh 651 or 751?

The announced 1200 x 4800 dpi of the c651ex and c751ex sounds sharp. How does the 651/751 series stack up to the 901 in production and registration?

 

[gfxdesignguy]

I'm actually wondering the same thing.. I'm looking into this product and cannot find any reviews on this. Have you since found out any more information?

 

[FLPNYC]

I am running a C751 : ) Ask me ANYTHING you want.

 

[MRIDUL]

How would you compare the C751 with the Konika Minolta C70hc

 

[bigirish73]

FLPNYC,

1. What is the Color like on the machine?

2. How frequent do you have to make service calls?

3. Are there jamming issues?

4. What is the thickest stock you have gotten through the machine?

5. Are you happy with the registration? What about when you duplex?

6. How does it compare with other machines in your shop?

7. Would you rather be running a different brand or model?

8. Are your customers happy with the quality of the prints?

9. Do you like the TCRU's (Trained Customer Replaceable Parts)?

I am currently trying to decide between the Konica Minolta c7000 and this model.

Thanks

 

[FLPNYC]

FLPNYC,

1. What is the Color like on the machine?
I could not be happier. With any machine, the equation is. Garbage in = Garbage out.
2. How frequent do you have to make service calls?
I do about 30-40k per month. It's been over a month.
3. Are there jamming issues?
You only get jamming issues if you do not profile your papers. Actual paper weight conflicts with Print file setting.
4. What is the thickest stock you have gotten through the machine?
130 lb dull matte. 350gsm
5. Are you happy with the registration? What about when you duplex?
Registration is PERFECT... Duplexing is amazing. Its been spot on since I got it 300k impressions ago.
6. How does it compare with other machines in your shop?
The only other Machine I have in the shop is a cpp660. I only keep this machine around for printing on specialty papers. Thick, non-white, un-smooth sheets.
7. Would you rather be running a different brand or model?
I have looked at all the equivalent products out there and nothing compared for the price and quality.
8. Are your customers happy with the quality of the prints?
We do a lot for the fashion Industry. I have yet to receive a complaint on the quality of the prints.
9. Do you like the TCRU's (Trained Customer Replaceable Parts)?
Absolutely LOVE them. I switch out Fusing units depending on the size of the paper in under 1 minute. Anything small goes wrong, I don't have to wait for a tech to come and do something the I was fully capable of doing. i.e. removing 3 screws and swapping in a new part.

I am currently trying to decide between the Konica Minolta c7000 and this model.

You can get a New c751 for the price of a used c7000. It really is up to you.

Thanks

 

[classycars]

Ricoh C751 Update NOT GOOD!!!

Beware, we have purchased a C751 from IKON and the 40,000 clicks were amazing. After the 40K, we have been experiencing serious banding issues and the techs are telling us that ALL of the Ricoh units are doing it and they do NOT have a fix for it. Luck for us - Ricoh sent the check back to us by mistake and now they haven't been paid for the machine. They are working FRANTICALLY to fix the problem, but do not have a solution. We have been told that if they replace the unit the new one is going to do the same thing. The banding is in the form of roller patterns and is much more noticeable in screens and solids. Grayscale is the worst, but all units do it singularly. They have literally torn our machine down and reassembled it to no solution. We are told that Japan is aware and that the prints are "within spec." There is NO way that a Japanese engineer would look at these prints and say they are within spec. The banding issue is so bad I have had several jobs rejected from customers and the quality of the prints are mostly unacceptable. It looks like it came off of an offset press with bad rollers. They are selling this as a production press/unit. They are selling it at both ondemand and the Chicago printing show. It is far from a production unit! Jamming issues - YES - the machine hates offset stock. registration is better than some but not perfect. Still has room to be better. Coated stocks look nice, but all stocks are subject to the ugly banding. Beware of this unit and Ricoh unless they come up with a fix for it and if you know of one that would be awesome. The machine has potential. They are trying to fix it, but they do not have a solution for it. Right now we have 300K on the machine and the banding is atrocious. If you have questions PLEASE ask.

 

[bigirish73]

This is not good.

We just ordered the c651ex.

Is anyone experiencing this with the slower model?

 

[abdouz]

Beware, we have purchased a C751 from IKON and the 40,000 clicks were amazing. After the 40K, we have been experiencing serious banding issues and the techs are telling us that ALL of the Ricoh units are doing it and they do NOT have a fix for it. Luck for us - Ricoh sent the check back to us by mistake and now they haven't been paid for the machine. They are working FRANTICALLY to fix the problem, but do not have a solution. We have been told that if they replace the unit the new one is going to do the same thing. The banding is in the form of roller patterns and is much more noticeable in screens and solids. Grayscale is the worst, but all units do it singularly. They have literally torn our machine down and reassembled it to no solution. We are told that Japan is aware and that the prints are "within spec." There is NO way that a Japanese engineer would look at these prints and say they are within spec. The banding issue is so bad I have had several jobs rejected from customers and the quality of the prints are mostly unacceptable. It looks like it came off of an offset press with bad rollers. They are selling this as a production press/unit. They are selling it at both ondemand and the Chicago printing show. It is far from a production unit! Jamming issues - YES - the machine hates offset stock. registration is better than some but not perfect. Still has room to be better. Coated stocks look nice, but all stocks are subject to the ugly banding. Beware of this unit and Ricoh unless they come up with a fix for it and if you know of one that would be awesome. The machine has potential. They are trying to fix it, but they do not have a solution for it. Right now we have 300K on the machine and the banding is atrocious. If you have questions PLEASE ask.

any feedback for solving the color banding

 

[classycars]

Unfortunately, nothing concrete yet. Thus far we have been into the unit of almost 4 months now and we have been experiencing far worse problems than just the banding issue. To answer your question about the banding more specifically, the techs have tightened some screws to the drum motors and that took anywhere from 60% to 40%(area dependent), of the banding, but it is still really not a salable sheet on about a 20-30% screen. The banding doesn't show on jobs with full color images as bad, because the images hide the banding, but when you run jobs with screens it is pretty awful. Not salable to our customers anyway, we've lost a slew of customers of the downtime too. Right now our machine is approaching 300K or there about, and it has had roughly 75% downtime over the last 4-6 weeks due to to drum code related errors and each time they fix the problems - it cuts out again within 1000 sheets or so on average for the same errors. Another ongoing issue we have been experiencing with this machine is the size 8.5X11 sheet printing from all of the bypass large capacity trays - these trays feed the sheet into the machine, but will not get past a sensor in the engine. This has been an issue we have had since the first week we owned it and it still isn't resolved. They thought it was fixed on 3 separate occasions, with three different fixes and it comes right back. I would love to hear feedback on other units out there of the same model. They are telling us that 300K in 4 months is the top end for running this machine, but I can't see that considering it has a 350K 8.5X11 duty cycle and 180K monthly volume cut 180K on half (mostly 75% of what we are running is 11X17 or larger), and that should give us about 90K per month 8.5X11 that we should be getting out of it...well we aren't getting that. I will keep you posted as it develops and if they're able to get it fixed. It would be nice to have it running smooth, because when it prints - it prints nice color. The banding is an issue and with the amount of downtime - it is a HUGE issue. What would you do if you were experiencing this amount of downtime in your first 3-4 months and it started just before month number two?

 

[Two32]

classycars, my 751 was installed in Dec, 2011 and I echo, literally almost verbatim, your two threads. Since your last post, has anything changed for you?

 

[classycars]

Well, we still haven't had the banding resolved. Registration issue comes and goes. They can generally fix it, but it is extremely annoying and too frequrent. The Fiery on the front end has an issue where we cannot lineup the duplexing from files sent from a MAC, but it works from a PC. We have had over 230 machine instituted service calls in a four month time frame for the exact same types of issues, NOT including service calls we have made or the machine has made for OTHER issues. We have experinced a great deal of down time on time on the mahine as well as a loss of customers from it. We were regularly doing work for an instituition in NYC and the work was pulled from us when we couldn't deliver 100 color copies printed on a 100# gloss text stock. We were doing a great deal of their work on this machine and now they went elsewhere becase we couldn't deliver. We have since taken a significant amount of the workload off of the machine and put it into the press room, at added expense of course, in order to meet quality and deadlines of customers. We are still in the same boat basically and we don't have answers to the quality issues. The downtime is inexcusable.

 

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

I would definitely get a different machine. I wish my customers were as loyal as you've been to Ricoh.

What does the banding look like, can you post a sample?

 

[classycars]

Attached is a picture of our current banding issue. Within specification? I will let you decide. I would love to get another machine, the problem is that they will not take this one out and I am only 6 months now into the contract with them. They claim it is working within specification and we are putting more clicks on it then it can handle and we are using stocks it isn't rated for - neither of which are further from the truth. We hardly run a cover stock and when we do the stock we run is below the rating for the machine. We are also a great deal below the rating as per the number of clicks the machine is supposed to handle. [url=http://www.freeimagehosting.net/dva8r][/URL] Click the link to take you to the full sized image.

 

[Joe Duffy]

Do you have the CED with the volumes listed you said you would run and they agreed to? I would push this to the top and fast, your amount of calls and issues in a 6 month period is beyond excessive and if you are indeed not beyond the scope of the engine then I would demand a 901GA at the same price installed now.
Get in touch with the owner of the company and tell him you want him/her, the Service Manager and the Ricoh Dealer rep on site and lay out everything. You have been patient and worked with them to resolve things, now is the time to get results from them.

 

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Fairly confident I know the problem...but not 100%

Your machine is printing problematic of some office grade machines I've fixed before. A few questions and then my thoughts...

1. Is that a black only print out or a composite CMYK "black" print out. If it's black only it should be pretty much pitch black unless the scan made it lighter.

2. Is the band printing horizontal or perpendicular to the drum? In other words if you do an 8.5x11 print with the 11" edge coming out first, and the bands are running from top to bottom all 11 inches, it would be horizontal to the drum.

First, I'm not a ricoh production tech, but the mechanics are the same and I have solved similar problems on other makes and models; but my suggestions might NOT be the answer to the problems. So I'd follow up on my suggestions, and especially if the service log or the tech hasn't tried something, I'd try it...

So...

Initially, I'm thinking it's a developer issue. It can be anything from replacing a developing unit, corona/webs, to poor contacts between the machine and the developer unit, to even lumps of toner being caked on the developers mag roller (roller that charges the developer carrying the toner to the drum). It could be a drum/blade issue or a false drum/blade issue if it's the mag roller. It is also possible to have a fuser related issue causing this.

What you can do to help narrow the problem down:

1. Send a couple of prints (it would be helpful if you can isolate the colors by sending a solid block printing black, then cyan, magenta, then yellow). I'd send about 20-30 let a few exit the machine then open the door or whatever you need to do for force jam the machine with papers at various stages within the machine.

2. Then what you do is follow the paper path and clear the pieces of paper until you get to the first point where the bands are. This is the easiest way to isolate the area of the problem. e.g., if they start at the drum it's a drum or developer issue, if it starts at the fuser, a fuser issue.

If you have a copy option you could test making analog copies to see if it's a print only problem. It is theoretically possible to be a dirty laser/mirror, memory, or firmware issue.

If I were the tech, I would do what I mentioned but also:

1. Use a voltmeter to verify power readings from the wall to the machine and from the connectors to the developer units.
2. Check the power settings and voltage to the drums, coronas/webs, and lasers (their power is adjustable).

Right now most likely fix is putting new developer units in.

Other considerations, I have had problems before with too old toner and developer causing such issues but this is too new to be the issue.

I kind of feel it's something more complex or a design flaw since the problem is so universal to many machines. Because I'd hope that a good Ricoh tech would have already done the things I mentioned. Something in design or from the factory could be the issue and if so...it may be outside of my comprehension.

Good luck and please keep me posted. I'll try to help if I can.

Oh btw, the sample is not within spec. Even on an office grade machine with a "lower standard" I wouldn't find it acceptable; but I'm pretty picky.

If all else fails, just stop payment, get a new machine and tell them they have five business days to pick up their POS. If they dare sue you, which they probably won't; I'm quite confident that you'd win. Plus let them pay for the filing fees and pursue you then you can counter-sue for free.

Attached is a picture of our current banding issue. Within specification? I will let you decide. I would love to get another machine, the problem is that they will not take this one out and I am only 6 months now into the contract with them. They claim it is working within specification and we are putting more clicks on it then it can handle and we are using stocks it isn't rated for - neither of which are further from the truth. We hardly run a cover stock and when we do the stock we run is below the rating for the machine. We are also a great deal below the rating as per the number of clicks the machine is supposed to handle. [url=http://www.freeimagehosting.net/dva8r][/URL] Click the link to take you to the full sized image.

 

[Bctnyli]

Looking for more info on the 751 which we had installed about 3 months ago.
My contact info:
todd@bctnyli.com
516.242.0370

 

[Two32]

It's not the Developer Unit!

I am having banding problems, too, (among other things) and my machine has had every part replaced in it including the developer unit, the rollers, the transfer belt and several sensors. The latest "fix" to the banding problem was to remove some gears within the rollers because it was thought the gears were causing the rollers to pulsate. The tech was at my center for 4 hours yesterday and, well, I'll let you be the judge if RICOH's "solution" worked or not.

 

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Well it's still likely that it's in the charge and develop process...unfortunately there's a thousand things it could be...

toner supply
developer
drum
dozens of rollers or sensors or gears
laser units
charges to any of a number of areas
and incorrect temperatures and charges to different areas
bad hard drives and firmware

Actually now that I think about it, even the print drivers can cause these problem...a bad driver or bad version postscript or pcl...

Best bet is to have them take it back on a recall and get something else.

 

[Two32]

Best bet is to have them take it back on a recall and get something else.

Easier said than done. I've tried numerous times. They have yet to acknowledge the issue as something more than "a new machine working the kinks out of itself." It's been over 6 months and the "kinks" are getting worse, not better!!!