Konica minolta bizhub 420

[copierlady]

Hey guys,
what do ya know about the bizhub 420's? Thinking about placing some in the field but, i haven't heard anything good or bad about them. Seems to be a lot of boxes off lease available. It this because of a good salesman or a bad copier? Also when i was checking some out the other day, more than one machine, seem to have a probem duplexing. They jammed a lot when i tryed to duplex. Also is the lct durable or problematic? (not a fan of lct's) anybody got some pros and cons on this box befor i get in to deep? Thanks.

[kingarthur]

we.ve got a couple out there, the problem with the duplexing is down to the clutches need replacing in the ADU, there have been lots of toner problems, for which KM bought out some mods, which appear to have been quite successful, make sure that you have the latest firmware V31, this has solved a few problems. The only time we get toner problems is from non KM toner bottles, Katun toner bottles cause problems, but we get round that by refilling the KM toner bottles with Katun toner. i've got an enhancement guide somewhere if you want to pm me your email. we've always put ours out as 4 drawer m/c's so cant comment on the LCT, but not a fan of them either. our busiest m/c does 20k to 30 k a month & haven't been to it for about 4 months, probably will now lol.

[BIG PAPA]

Have to agree with previous post. Good machines. Ive had alot of the tray 3 lct's, same desgin as color models. No problems with them that I have had.

[fixthecopier]

Search for post for codes 28-03 and 24-03. If it was not for those codes it would be a good machine. Last 28-03 I had, the machine had to be pulled and fixed at the shop.

[BigBob]

adu clutches (simple, cheap fix), if its got old firmware you'll get a "replace fusing unit" message that will not go away until you update fw at about 250k, and the dreaded toner problems. I've done all the toner mods dozens of times, and you know what works better then going through all that trouble? Roll up a piece of legal or ledger, point it towards the back of the toner hopper and blow the sensor out, works, and lasts till it gets dirty again.

[copierlady]

Thanks for the info. Placed one today. Guess we'll see how it goes. Sounds like it might be ok.

[rocky246]

If these machines are placed in a hard running environment, I would stock up on fuser drive gears. Once these gears are replaced, they seem to strip out quite often. I had 18 of these in a school district that ran about 70K amonth on each machine. I averaged 25 to 30 service calls a week on them! I had tech support from KM out with me several times for 24-03 faults. All modifications were installed and still had several machines that faulted. Tech support had no other ideas and gave up. I agree on the duplex clutches. Not a big deal though. We had to buy out the lease on these machines in order to keep the account. Replaced with 601's. I would stay away from these parts eating machines. In a word I think these are JUNK! On a much brighter note, I do have a 501 that has 1 Million clicks on it and it seems to be doing OK. Updated version of the 360/420/500's, but it's the exact same machine inside. I would stay away from this family altogether!

[Rudi]

Except for the tereble toner hopper ,fuser drive and weak printer control board dont install it with a finisher or lct or dont install it at all its a peace of crap rather go for a minolta di 552 that only has paperjam issues now and then.

[Montana Tech]

420's were enough of a problem in the field that we had stopped selling them. The problems have pretty much been what's already been mentioned - toner system, fuser drive, and light copy quality.

[Cantechman]

Wow I have different feelings on that line of copiers. I have 20-25 and almost all in schools . They do have a few problems but I find that overall they work quite well. I have always found if the copies were faded replace the transfer corona unit and it would be fine. Around every 200K it does get a bit faded, but replace the drum and dev and its fine again. I am able to fix the 2403 code quite easily now. I used to go though the back removing the boards, hopper assy, the whole 9 yards to clean that home position sensor. Now I use my vacuum with a nozzle that is about as round as a dime and about 16-18 inches long and a vacuum it out from the front. I just pull out the hopper and vacuum all the loose toner in behind the hopper and all around quite easily. I just unplug the machine. Those sensors are very durable and I have vacummed around them before in other situations and never damaged one. It takes all of 2 minutes to fix it. The LCT's work well too. Just replace the feed rolls every now and then and your all set.

[copierlady]

Thanks for the feed back (i think). I'm hopeing i agree with the guys that love em. My customer does 10-15k per month not that much. Hopefully it will hold up.

[Cantechman]

That little volume you should have very few problems.

[bobe]

Re: Konica minolta bizhub 420

Worst copier ever made. C2403 because you replace the toner bottle is a ..... The finishers are also .......