Ricoh Vs Sharp

[Mopar Freak]

I have to say the Ricoh gears, drive and fuser gears etc. seem to not give out. The older sharp gears were always shearing teeth off. The main motor drive frames especially and fuser gears would just become brittle. These Ricoh gears are in desert heat for 7 or more years and still function just fine. Also the Ricoh ardf design and feed rubber definately seems superior to the sharp and kyocera stuff. Ricoh negative, the stupid paper size dials!Just my thoughts.

[schooltech]

Well this could definitely be one of 'those' threads.

I have the luck, I guess you could say, to currently work on both brands, although most of the Sharps are old 2060's to arm-620's, and the Toshiba-engined Ar651.

After seeing and working on many brands, I just like Ricoh's. Of course, they do have their issues, but overall they are good boxes and user-friendly.

I think that, of the many improvements they could do, they could benefit from the re-try features of paper feeding that other manufacturers have adopted, and maybe instead of paper dials they could just read the paper size from the guide adjusters in the drawers. Stuff like this needs to be real easy, and the service calls for customer items would reduce.

I think that sometimes we may say "Argh, customers again for a simple problem." Well yeah, it's simple for us. It's the same thing we go out to many times, it's stuff we've seen before and we know what we're looking for. But for them, it may be something they don't think of, like not adjusting the wheel on a Ricoh 2022 paper drawer and wonder why it jams after they've changed the paper.

2 things about this problem:

1) It does give us something do to, and adds to giving us a check.

2) It's not COMPLETELY their fault; if the manuf. made it easier, it would avoid the simple calls, and leave the real calls for the techs.

I deal with tons of teachers, aides, administrators, and parent-helpers across multiple schools, so I could see where a bit of simplicity would be nice from time-to-time.

I have a Sharp Arm-620 that, right now, has another ruined fuser unit. It's in a somewhat high-environment (school) and it really can't handle the 120k+ per month it's thrown. I end up doing a PM every 2 months. It's just been recently supplemented with a Ricoh 1075, so the almost 3 million in 2 years on the Sharp will finally slow down a bit.

But, another benefit of Ricoh are all of the aftermarket suppliers for parts and supplies. It makes my job easier to be able to get cheap rollers and parts, while with my Sharp boxes I have to get quite a few of the items OEM from the dealer.

Thanks Mopar Freak for creating a thread that I just HAD to throw my .02 in.

[pspahr]

I'm an unabashed Ricoh fanboy, always have been since moving from other brands such as Canon, HP, Lexmark, and Xerox....As recent as a year ago I worked with a dealer who sold Savin (Ricoh) and Sharp. At that time the volume of Sharp in the field was low and I believe I serviced one only once when the normal (can you be normal as a Sharp tech?) tech was out. It was not an unpleasant experience, but the design did throw a bunch of red flags in my mind....

Anyway, I believe it depends a lot on what you "grew up" on. I started with Canon and reluctanly moved to Ricoh. 3 months later I decided I'd be fine if I never saw a Canon again. This was during the day of the FT5540~FT5590 machines of Ricoh!!!!!! I just liked their construction and design. Since that time I've only seen Ricohs get better with only a few exceptions (C1224 ring a bell?).

However, I never did get much time on a Sharp. The company I worked for when I got into Ricoh also sold Canon, Sharp, Kip, and Oce at the time. I did have the pleasure of working on a Sharp (60 ppm series machine analog) that had some neat features like easily removed clutches and the like. Other than that I have only the ability to fall back on one of my acquaintances who is a Sharp tech from the beginning. He's of the mind that they are great, maybe he'll post his views.

//Man I type like I talk, long and drawn out and not to the point.......

[schooltech]

It's interesting that you said it depends on what you grow up on, in that I am from the school that if you worked on old, tired analog crap and actually made it run, that you can end up being a better (if you strictly keep IT out of it) digital tech in the long run. The old days of shimming clutches and stuff paved the way for the quick-swap CRU of today.

When I started, it was on old Mita's, like the 313's, 1205's and up to the mid-range analogs. This dealership also sold Panasonic, and I absolutely loved those machines-like the 7722-7750 analog machines. They just ran themselves and really only PM'd them every 120k. The ADF's were somewhat difficult, but other than that, they just ran and ran.

Also trying to not be winded, I think that coming into the industry today, most of the machines will pretty much be ok, no matter what manufacturer, if, as a tech, you don't really know one from the other. Newer techs will be more IT and less of a troubleshooter from the earlier times. I say that tongue-in-cheek because I've been doing it over 10 years, definitely not as long as many of the guys on the forum, but I've worked really hard to learn the craft and truly get out of the technical schools what I went there for.

Anyway, I agree that if you grow up on a model, and are not familiar with other families, you'll probably do ok because you begin to know the in's and out's of that manufacturer and its little quirks.

[bilyahn]

There are definitely major likes for both manufactorers. We have both machine types but are primarily a Sharp dealer. I've been to the Sharp tech schools and have learned a lot of valuable info that translates into better service. I've been to no Ricoh schools which is a shame as I have a few irritating things that happen that I just know the school would clear up for me. As it is only the boss and myself being the techs for the company we have to manage our time pretty well. Sharp machines tend to go with new gimmicks it seems and they don't do the proper testing/upgrades as in the ARM550-620-700 series fusers or the ARM350,355,450,455-MX350-450 doucument feeders which wind up costing our business in service calls and tech bulletin modifications. Most Ricohs that I have had the tech bulletins for are of the easily incorporated variety and it seems that they take care of the deficiency in the next generation of machines. Sorry to be so verbose! I still like the smaller Sharps and overall the new generations of Sharps are very user friendly for our customers.

Bil

[paul bristol uk]

I am 95% Sharp and as I know then well I am fairly comfortable with them now. The ease of repair on Ricoh is much better though.

The one niggle I have is the toner unit and bottle fitment.

I have lost count of the number of green handles I have replaced and clogged up units I have had to strip and clean.