Canon IRC 3200 - Useful Life ??

[copyuser]

I have from new, a 4 year old Canon IRC 3200 unit with 500k pages total on the counters. (95% A4 Black print outs ) What is the expected life of this machine ?

[bkivett]

opinion

not sure what canons opinion would be unless it is that if lease is out, time to lease new.
the largested counter i have seen is 900k with 80 percent color.
as long as verticle assy is kept clean, exit door area is repaired properly, and itb assy is replaced when it is no longer tracking true, then i would guess you may be half way there.

[kwazimoto]

I agree 900 k is not a problem as long as the work is done right is not a problem..

[copyuser]

Many Thanks

Thank you both for your inputs - suggesting that there's still a lot of life in this 3200 yet. Up to recently, it had been a very reiable machine, but has given a lot of problems over the past 50,000 prints / 6 months and now needs more parts etc. We now own this machine outright and buy in maintenance / service as required. With this life expectancy, It would appear to make good sense to get all its issues sorted out rather than replacing it with new. Many Thanks.

[OtherTech]

When I trained at Canon we were told by instructor frame life of machine was 500K. Partially due to fact everything is plastic. (warping of guides and becomes brittle with age) Having said that have had one machine go over 1 million and another nearing that. Both over a five year period. I think time is as much a factor as mileage/volume.Paying for color drums is very exspensive at retail rates and with low useage they wear out anyway (daily control rotations)

[sirphantazum]

Hello All,

I have 3 IRC 3200/3220 that all have over 2.2 million 102 clicks well over 80% color. these machines are work horses and can never be replaced this customer runs paper that I would never let a normal operator run ranging from over spec card stock thur trays and even perf paper (MY worst night mare). But having a good operator who is REALISTIC makes my time there easy. the key is to keep up with all maint keep it clean and make sure your ops do the auto cal adjusment regularly. I also have over 8 well over the 1 mil mark in office locations. and many under. VACUME the things out inside and out yearly for pete sakes guys

[arunts]

regarding irc3200

hi sirphantazum vbmenu_register("postmenu_23259", true);
good to hear that your machines completed 2.2 million. Let me know how many copies does a typical drum life last ?

thanks

[arunts]

regarding irc3200

hi sirphantazum
good to hear that your machines completed 2.2 million. Let me know how many copies does a typical drum life last ?

thanks

[Irish]

Clc/irc 3200

This is a Great machine one of Canons best .. Keep it going as long as U can .. Agree that life is in the Millions .. Easy to diagnose and work on .. Drum life is an unknown Quantity .. To check Drum Life..Go >Service mode> Misc> Drum life is shown as a No which Canon call a % But its not ..This No. should not be allowed excede 300% as they will start dropping toner and cause reg. Issues I have replaced them as low as 40% due to shadowing.. Make sure u have the latest Software .. Enjoy the Machine..

[sirphantazum]

drum life(sorry long)

Hello,

OK drum life for a IRC3200: Drum life on a Irc is easily viewed in the display>Misc Now on those HIGH milage machines I have seen drum likfe go from 100 to 900 on that misc meter. I have repeatedly seen them go in to the 300-500% BUT and this is a huge BUTT.. Color drum life can not be truely measured on these machines because in a color machine its really all about Total coverage of color. Canon has never realy goten it right with the drum lifes. Since I work on all Canon color from CLC1 to the Image Press 7000> But if you are chargeing the 102, 109 and 124 meters you will make money on service. When I view the misc meter of drums I dont bother replacing them at 125 if a PG5 test page of all colors at 128 and 64 dens and look for lines and faded areas. If this test showes streaks or fades, i will replace them. as far as 102 click counts I have seen them fo 30 to 90 k in a normal office and sometimes the same for a print shop if they arent running real thick paper. NOW paper has a huge effect on your drum life. My high milage machines really are driven hard they can run 24 - 100lb paper some with PERFS (arrgg I hate PERF) and 2 sided glossy. When these machines are runing that thicker PERF stock, they only run on machine till the job is done (they have 3) Because the PERFs actually wear right to the drums and not on the ITB belt. This is due to drum memory and voltage differences were the perf is and were it is not. a Page 5 will actually look like a pc of the perf paper you can see the dots and every thing. So what does this mean.. In an office that doesnt use alot of color youl replace black drums alot more then color for me its 3 black to 1 color in a print shop I always try to replace them together if they are close so for example if my YMC misc counts are 100 ish and my black 200 I replace all 4. (My manager doesnt like it but i argue that I rarely have to do anything else with them and he leaves me alone.) Specially when My BEI numbers are HIGH sometimes 46-86 FCE. I will try to keep these running forever because those High milage ones can never be replaced with a 5185 model due to thier paper usage.
When my drums get close I usely see alot of e020-XXb0 (endof life) and 34s. So i automaticly replace the drum (34's are ususally out of box warranty.) I just found out this week I put over 120K in drums out last year I carry 2 full sets of 3200 drums and 2 sets of 5180 drums in my car stock. If you watch your click counts and I see a drum went at 15k or even 20k I always put those drums under warranty. Its a pain but it keeps my boss off my butt. Sorry so long but drums are always a hot topic and Canon always puts a click count on these when they truelly dont know how long they last. I hope this helps.

[Irish]

Isint that what I said?

[lkrsardis]

life

That WAS a mouth full. The useful life of any copier is when the customer is tired of the downtime due to them being to cheap to replace it or when nobody will consent to work on it anymore.

[copyuser]

My IRC 3200 is now dead !!

Ok, here's an update on my machine which has 500k copies and 4 years old. For most of its life it gave realible troublefree operation, but in the past 9 months it has given a lot of trouble - resulting in many parts being changed (including hard drive)
The local tech support (Canon trained ) has recently done a lot of work on it but had not managed to get it working fully ( most recently could not get it taking paper feed from trays , so we worked for a couple of months feeding from the bypass only)
Now hovever it has stopped completly - giving a paper jam fault - but all appears to be clear

Their only suggestion now is to replace the DC Controller ? with estimated cost of Euro 1000 - but no guarantee that this will fix problems

After discussions with Canon technical, with a view of getting a second opinion, they verify that we could indeed expect to spend up to Euro 2000 to get it working properly - but even at that, we would only still have a machine approaching its end of life - so they would not recommend that course of action. - not financially feasable

As a technical person ( not copier though) I have observed that mostly the troubleshooting appeared to be very hit and miss - based on the sometimes rather haphazard changing out of parts for new rather than any logical diagnostics.

- an anologhy -----

What i mean is that if the waterpump on your car is not working and you change out the complete engine - you will surely fix the problem - but if you were able to do precise troubleshooting / diagnostics and consequently replace only the water pump you would also have fixed the problem - affordably

However I do realise we life in a disposable age and gagets (and printer/copiers ??) and certainly modules within them have become throw away - So this is where I am with my IRC 3200 - about to throw it away and invest in a new machine
Its a pity not to get more use from it - but thats the way it goes !!

As I have another identical machine of same age with only 300k use mabee Ill strip some parts from defunct unit and keep as spares ??

Meanwhile, Thanks for all your comments etc

[Irish]

Can I ask what general part of the Island u are on ... No point in replacing the waterpump if the fan belt is broken .....

[copyuser]

I am located in the South West of Ireland