Have a (potential) customer that currently has eight MP5001's, looking to upgrade. Thinking of selling them off lease MP4054's to replace but wondering how they have been performing as I have not placed any yet. Do they still have same toner/dev. issues as the MP5001/4002? Are they fairly reliable? Any input appreciated, thanks in advance.
Hi there!
You can only get the ..04EX-models, but they are (until now) reliable machines. Keep the fw up to date & they are good working machines.
Greetings...
As it turns out, cutting the weight of the machine from the 02 series to the 04 series by 65% means that they are flimsy, covers break easily and the cabinets/option tray casters suck. Not sure yet if they fixed the typical ricoh toner leak problem, as the hopper is located in the rear of the machine. But hey, at least the customer wont see the toner all over the front door and paper trays, it'll just collect in the rear instead of the front.
We haven't had them out in the field for long enough to know what long-term problems they'll have but I do know that the PM kits for the imaging unit and fusing belt assy are expensive. A full PM will run a customer close to 1000 bucks.
Some companies will say they are the worst model of ricoh, some will say they are good machines.
They are worlds better than the 5001/5002 series machines. They have a completely new drum and developer unit design that is different than both of the machine lines they replaced. The drive gears for the development unit are completely outside the unit, additionally the bushings for the augurs are replaceable and come in the PM kits for the fusing units.Originally Posted by Old Crow
Unlike the 2851/52/53 units I have yet to have one shred the gears for the mag roller and development unit.
The drums are rated for 160k on the 40/50/60CPM models and 120k on the 25/30/35 CPM version. But internally they have the same engine.
Fusing sleeve is rate 320k and 240k respectively
We have several in prisons and there are some out there nearing 4 years old that have 500-600k on the meter and they still work good.
Things to keep in mind is that they take their own specific drum and developer. Though they can also be used on the newer MPxx55 series machines too.
They use sleeve belt fusers like many of the color machines which require care when installing but they seem to run at least to yield for us.
You will probably need to oil the upper scanner rail and the idle rollers in the paper exit area as they tend to generate noise with age. There is a bulletin for the exit rollers.
The harness that runs from the bypass paper length sensors to the main frame can get brittle and break over time.
The worst part of them for me is that the thermistor connectors for the fuser plug into connectors in the main frame and over time they tend to get seated very tightly in and I've ripped wires from the connector ends trying to get them out. When you put them back in only use enough pressure to seat them enough to make a connection.
The Drum PM kits cost about twice as much as a PM kit, drum, and developer do for a MP2852, however the yield is also double. That said yeah the fusing pm kit is about six times the cost of what the equivalent would be for a MP2852 even though the yield is again only doubled.
If you get your parts from a third party supplier than I have no idea what the price difference may be. As for the toner leak I'll have to take a look in the back of one of the machines we have in the field that has 500-600k on it and see what it looks like. I do know the drum cavity is generally far cleaner than its predecessors though.
A full pm for $1000 would be about 100% markup from cost from Ricoh though.
I actually did like the MP2852 style, significant upgrade from the 2851 as far as the paper feed system goes. I am skeptical of the MP3554 style for a lot of reasons but only time will tell for us. We service and refurbish mainly Ricoh and Konica so I always lean toward Konica, despite the glitches, even for B/W. I've always wondered why Ricoh can't just take a page from Konica and make their B/W models functionally identical to the color models, minus the color imaging units.
But we gotta keep engineers employed somehow.
Ricoh seems to do a lot to make sure that ONLY color drums can be used in the color slots of their machines. I think this is why they try to make the imaging engines so different. They are starting to make the frames and covers very similar though.
Having said that I think the ITB system makes the drums last a lot longer and I think it would improve their black and white machines if Ricoh added a small ITB belt to them. I've never worked on any Konica machines so I don't know how their system is laid out.
I think the 54 series was a major advance for Ricoh, but then again they had been using what was functionally the same engine and toner system for nearly 20 years before.
I have 5054 and we have constatly problems with cleaning blade. Every 30 to 40t prints costumer caled me that there are black lines on copies. First time when this was happened I changed drum, developer, cleaning blade but the problem came up again, after that I just clean drum unit every 30 to 40t copies.
Problematic is a DF3090 too, constantly jaming on some type of paper.
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Thanks to all for your opinions and good information. Sounds like mixed reviews. I'll probably place one and see how it goes and if everyone is happy(including me) put some more out.
We have a handful of these out there, and so far, every unit in these machines have gone way beyond estimated yield. We had a couple where the drum unit went for nearly 300k. And Fusers are going WELL over 320k. Some of the design changes make PM'ing the machine take a little longer, but overall these are great machines. We have them in hospitals mostly, and rarely have to visit them.
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