Ricoh Production Machines?

[Hemlock]

Anyone here work on the 1356/1357 and/or the C900 Pro? One of my customers is looking at replacing an Oce' VP6250 with the Ricoh mono box and swapping in a 900 to replace Oce' CPS color machines and I was wondering how the large scale Ricohs perform in the field.

Thanks in advance!

[CableGuy]

I have one of these in the field. Apart from a feeding issue regarding 75gsm paper that seems to have resolved now. The only other problem, I had to replace the Polygon motor last week due to a sc202 error that kept popping up. The machine has 2mil on the clock now, it gets its regular pm services and so far all is good.

[Hemlock]

Thanks!

[apump]

1356 series are good running boxes. put the pm kits (500k, 700k, 1mil) in them and they just run. wires can be stretched to about 800k even seen more than that if need be...

[msaeger]

The 1357 is awesome the c900 is pretty good too but what are they going to run on it ?

[Hemlock]

Aside from the standard stuff, saddle stitched & edge trimmed 17" books (square folded, if possible). Some of these books will have 275gm coverstock. Plus assorted tabbed jobs, three hole punched, GBC bound - stuff like that.

Do you see a lot of color changing through runs or does it manage the toner/developer mix fairly well on the fly?

[Shadow1]

Color is very stable - the only issues stem from gloss marks when switching between wide and narrow paper, but that's any printer with a fuser. I had one had a funky low frequency color variation in cyan - there is a bulletin about the dev units, swapped in the updated unit and problem solved.

The books may be a different story - the Plockmatic booklet finisher (BK5010e) is built like a tank and makes a really pretty saddle stiched (and square spine if you get that attachment) booklet. Only problem - its kind of like working on a tank too. Once you get one running there aren't many problems, but when there are...

As for the Pro1357's - I've got a lot of this series machine (mostly older generations), and if that was all I had I'd be like the Maytag guy. I've got 2 that won out over brand X machines costing 5x more because they worked so much better - over 5mil on both now and the customer is getting another.

[Hemlock]

Thanks for all the input; I was a little concerned (having never worked on Ricoh) but it sounds like they're pretty stable.

[KenB]

What applications will you be printing from, and are you using Windows XP, Vista, 7, Mac OSX verion, 32 or 64 bit?

The answers to these questions will determine if you're better off with a Ricoh or Fiery controller.

Some of the older Ricoh B&W Fierys were somewhat less than stellar, but the 1357 Fiery just rocks. I only have one of them out there, but the customer is lovin' it.

Another advantage in using the Fiery, at least in your case, would be that you could use Command Workstation to control both the 1357 and the C900. That in itself could save you a lot of production time.

[msaeger]

You can only get the c900 with a Fiery and a Creo controller now too I guess.

[KenB]

You can only get the c900 with a Fiery and a Creo controller now too I guess.

Sorry, I should have mentioned the C900 only is available with the Fiery, my bad.

I've heard that the Creo is coming for the C900 as well, but I don't think it's available yet. I've not seen any presales info on it.

[msaeger]

Yeah I don't know if it's out or not but there are manuals on esource and a training thing on elearning.

[Hemlock]

32 bit, XP and it now looks like they're getting a 7500. Apparently they're getting a Micropress as a front end for the two machines. As for Apps, I think the most taxing will be variable data jobs from Publisher.

[Shadow1]

In a lot of ways the Ricoh (GW) controller is better - unless your customer uses the features of the fiery, and very few do. I have a print shop with a C900 and 2 MP1350's with the GW controller and they bitch about the Fiery.

[Hemlock]

This customer is very much a creature of habit; they had a Fiery on their X-box, one for each of the Oce' color boxes and minimal change is good in this instance.

So I guess the question now is "what do y'all think of the 7500?".