Getting ready to resell Ricoh Color MFC's...but which ones?

[Foo]

Hello,

I'm a one man sales and service operation and have been selling refurbished Ricoh b/w copiers for 8-9 years.

I'd like to try and learn the service basics and get a feel for the differences between b/w & color units
(yes I know servicing one unit will not train me for all units, but I have to start somewhere).

A couple of questions I have for those with experience in color Ricoh's are...
What to purchase and a good strong starting point machine. Anywhere from 22-45 cpm would be great.

Are certain Ricoh color models known for being "tanks" and others for being "turds"?

Are there certain models to avoid because of cost of operation, cost of consumables, or just being crappy boxes?

I have access to 1000 off lease Ricoh machines within 25 minutes of here and I usually get to choose which unit I want (condition, copy count and copy quality),
then I go test it further to see what may be needed to refurb. it. I enjoy Ricoh for the most part and most of my customers are off lease Ricoh consumers.

I'd like to continue to stick with the Ricoh line and learn what I can about the color units to further my offerings to my customers.

Any info, advice, incite or humor that you'd like to pass along, I'd appreciate a lot.

Thanks for taking the time to post an answer!

Jeff

[Cipher]

The whole MPC range is solid from the 1st generation upwards and the print engine pretty much follows the same type of design.

The only ones I would avoid are the larger 65/75 ppm machines.
They do the volume but are not so quick and painless to service.

[Klydon]

Wide variety of engines and headaches/good points with each. Some of the numbers are intermixed, so need to do homework on which machine belongs to what family.

The "small" color machines are pretty cheap when it comes to construction and are not work horses. They are meant for light duty and are somewhat flimsy. If run in the environment they were designed to run in, they do well. All too often, they are asked to do more than what they were designed to do. MPC 2050/2550, 2051/2551 fit in this category. There are some parts that will run to PM and hit the wall, especially if the customer is doing a fair amount of color. These machines do seem to have an appetite for hard drives as I have had to replace several. Plastic pieces breaking above the fuser is a fairly common occurance on these as well. Fuser issues vary as can be seen on several threads on the board here.

Older machines include the MPC 2000/2500/3000. These are more rugged and are probably better suited for low end work. The issue with them is they are older and depending on a customers network/operating system, there may be some headaches (IE, I am not sure how well they would play with Win 8/server 2012). I think they are more reliable than the 2050/2550, 2051/2551 series machines.

The MPC 2800/3300 is a good work horse machine and you can pretty much use and abuse these and still get good results out of them. Drums will easily run to and past projected PM. Same for transfer belts and cleaning units. Fusers will hold up for a long, long time with the exception of an occasional blown lamp, but will click/clack from bearings. I have had a very small handful of hard drives go on these. The biggest issue is likely the SC202 issue which is a BICU and laser unit, which is not a common occurance, but otherwise, these things run well.

The MPC 3500/4500 is an older model (roughly same age as the 2000/2500/3000) and will run fairly well too. The fuser is not so friendly as there are some issues with it and most techs will just change the whole thing out when it comes to that time. The rest of it runs pretty well, but it is a machine getting longer in the tooth as far as networks go, etc.

The MPC 3001 is a newer machine and has been pretty good from what I have seen. There are minor changes between it and the 2800/3300 series.

One final note. Of the few machines I have seen running non OEM toners, I have had an ton of issues with. Bottom line is don't do it. Use Ricoh supplies with it and save yourself a lot of headaches with your drums and developer units.

[Polarbear]

@Klydon - well said.

Also keep in mind that Ricoh colour is first of all BUSINESS colour and NOT production colour machines, meaning that their design use is 20-30% colour and the balance black. If you hammer a Ricoh on colour it WILL cost you!

Also they will (because of the above design limitation) band like hell if you run full page full bleed prints! And there is nothing you can do to fix that. They are NOT dye sublimation (think Textronix Phaser) style machines.

PLEASE do not sell them into printshop or graphic arts installations, as you will have HUGE headaches!

Flipside is, when sold correctly their colour is amazing! I love the 2000/2500/3000 series, as they are much more solidly - you will see what I mean when you compare them to the 2050 series.

I second the sentiments about the non-genuine toner!

[Foo]

Thank You so much for your replies.
I will take the info and use it to make some decisions about further purchases.

I just this morning purchased an off lease MP C3300 with 80K on it.
Runs great and copy quality is top notch.
It will be going to a small office and be 90% B/W and 10% Color usage.

Looks like I'm going to get a crash course in color Ricoh's...lol.
I'm sure it will turn out fine. I don't have any real problems keeping all my other Ricoh's
up and running. So this hopefully will have the same results.

Thanks
Jeff

[GhostInTheMachine]

You've got some great recommendations already. I would add just one model. The MPC300/400 is an A4 machine and as long as you are not trying to run extreme volumes through it, it's pretty much install it and forget it. Sure there are minor issues like an ADF hinge bracket that breaks, but for the most part they are a tank. Out of more than 100 in the field, I have only replaced 2 PCDU units. One was a premature failure, the other finally stripped some gears at 3x over yield. Never replaced a fuser or transfer belt, ever.

Of course, this is also the only model where I have not yet had a salesman put one in a location doing 10x the recommended volume

[Foo]

Thanks Ghost...I will check with my wholesaler and see if they are coming off lease yet.
I see that they were released in Jan. 2011 and it may be too soon for off lease to be available.

Thanks again,
Jeff

[Polarbear]

"ADF hinge bracket that breaks"

There is an RTB about this, and Ricoh replaces them as it is a design fault.

[Klydon]

Unfortunately, the new hinge holder doesn't get the job done either and I have heard they can fail every 15-20K depending on usage and application. I would be real leary of the MPC300-400 for now. Lot of plastic and I have heard mixed reviews from a tech standpoint of view on them. Fortunately it will be a bit before they start coming in off lease, so more information can be found out about them as time goes along.

[GhostInTheMachine]

I was thinking they've been out longer, but for the sake of keeping the argument going , yes the hinge holders fail. I don't even know that there IS a new one because I can't tell any difference between the two. That being said, they are very cheap and easy to replace. 5 minute job. And I would have to say anyone getting 15-20k is (A) greatly exaggerating, (B) has abusive customers, or (C) has customers running extremely low volumes. 15-20k isn't bad if they are doing 10k a year. We have replaced these on about 75% of boxes at least once, and only replaced them more than once on a couple boxes that I can think of. I have one customer that does tons of scanning and they have only broken it once. BTW these are not recommended for high volume scanning. Only about 150k on the engine but about 350k scanning and I had to completely rebuild the ADF. You would think a salesman would know this... wait a minute! What am I thinking?! We're talking about salesmen! lol