As a baby technician I was schooled on Ricoh(Lanier/Savin) and Oce MFP's. DF Feed belts, Rollers, etc... Then on to Fusers, okay...., even a registration assy on a Rico1075, at the time I thought it was the worst thing in the world. As the years went by I gained an appreciation for the above said. Yes, toner is messy, but troubleshooting and maintenance was a cinch. Even big problems like a failed controller or a bad power supply was easy.
But then I was kicked in the teeth and sent to Canon training...kicking and screaming...but strangely intrigued by the, so called, Cadillac of Machines.
And what I discovered was that if Cadillac had adopted Canon's build/product quality and engineering methods they would still be shlepping Cimmerons... You remember those right? The $30K 'Lac Cavalier.
Since 2006 I have been regularly working on these machines along side Ricoh and Kyocera and everything else IKON pushed. I dealt with the irc6800, c3100 which I thought were utter disasters. Then the flimsy cacophony called the S1 internal finisher and then the t1-t2 finishers and there WACK staple ribbon cable/swing guide/rediculous firmware updating procedure, having to do clutch-ectomies on seg4's was common place at a million clicks.
Today did it for me though... The fact that this company would use dollar store clutches in a 65 ppm machine is amazing. the rest of the world has moved on to stepper motors in just about every application years ago.... having to rip apart the ENTIRE contoller assy on a ir6570 (VS one that has 3 screws and swings out) not to mention removing the gigantic external fax comm board over the controller (like 60 friggen screws!) and then MANGLE this stupid metal waste toner shield/housing and the plastic thing that slides out with the bottle to get to a clutch was it for me.... They suck. All of them SUCK! They are not engineered to be serviced. And they sure as hell don't last more than a million before you are replacing all sorts of crazy things.
I know every machine has its down falls, every machine has some weak point, some irritation. But it is like every frikken canon I lay hands on is a joke. Just this week alone:
ir1670 DF feed tires and a fuser on ir1670 - seriously canon? the document feeder on that pos had to be removed from the copier, flipped upside down and completely disassembled to replace a $5 roller.
ir6570 ribbon cable in t1 finisher - completely and utterly stripped off every panel to replace a wearable item.
ir6570 vertical transport motor assembly, wow you may as well call a coroner. If this was a Ricoh I would have been in and out in an hour. this is day 3....
irc6800 I dont even need to go here because this machine is a total joke and everyone knows it. This time though there was a drum phase error and required gutting the machine to get the dv assy out... 4 hours later....
This is not a lack of experience or some lack of cognition or even a lack or resources. I am a good tech, this is just simply miserably engineered machinery. That causes customers to have unnecessary down time for otherwise routine maintenance. Seriously if there is a Canon Engineer out there reading this you should take notes because your Copiers Suck. I have a Ricoh mp9000 next to a 7501 and it literally runs laps around it. 21mil on the ricoh 9 million on the canon and i can tell you that i am under the ricoh a whole lot less than the 7501
End Rant
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