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TeraTech Inc
04-10-2012, 04:08 AM
Hello all, hope you enjoyed the lond weekend.

So we came across a guy selling a Konica Minolta C550 bizhub with the finisher for $2,500. Says that everything is in working order (I will check the parts counter when I see him to make sure parts are reasonably new) and it has 350,000 clicks which seems pretty good. My only concern is the cost to maintain the printer. Toner seems cheap but I can't find many parts outside Konica Minolta (ie PM Kits for the printer) and the colour drums seem super expensive for only 100K ($500 each!) My question is, is it worth it to make the purchase? Are there any major problems with the printer I should know about?

Right now we have a Bizhub C500 Pro which seems to eat toner like crazy and has cost me an arm and a leg. My colour toner doesn't even last 5K so I have no choice but to find an alternative. Your opinions are appreciated.

ineo+6501
04-10-2012, 11:45 AM
The C550 is a great bit of kit. It has it's problems like most machines though.

The black image units can dump developer and cause major problems with image quality and paper feed.
Make sure it has the mods fitted and up to date firmware. Also make sure it has the modified transfer belt cleaning gears.

The image units can be chipped & the fuser unit & transfer belt can be fused to extend life which can save money.
Be aware that if you are a print shop, stick with genuine toner. Also be aware that the C550 will NOT take SRA3 sheets like the C500 does.

The toner yield is good although I suspect that you may have a very high coverage rate which will eat toner on any machine.

habik
04-10-2012, 02:38 PM
The C550 is a great bit of kit. It has it's problems like most machines though.

The black image units can dump developer and cause major problems with image quality and paper feed.
Make sure it has the mods fitted and up to date firmware. Also make sure it has the modified transfer belt cleaning gears.

The image units can be chipped & the fuser unit & transfer belt can be fused to extend life which can save money.
Be aware that if you are a print shop, stick with genuine toner. Also be aware that the C550 will NOT take SRA3 sheets like the C500 does.

The toner yield is good although I suspect that you may have a very high coverage rate which will eat toner on any machine.


Fully Agree with you. As long as the machine had its mods and you keep it clean especially around 2nd transfer section (vertical) it should run for long time. Good Luck with your purchase.

TeraTech Inc
04-10-2012, 04:34 PM
Thank you both, now I know what to expect. nothing ventured nothing gained, hopefully this works out :)

robdun
05-01-2012, 12:10 AM
Hi

My first post on this forum.

We use C550 in our UK printshop for printing labels and card stock. It's taken some getting used to and we've experienced 2 drum toner dump issues, both of which were returned and replaced under warranty.

Now that we're used it it's proving very reliable, providing we use Thick 1+ and above settings, can't get decent fusing at full speed, even for very thin label stock.

The KM driver is problematic for data-based sourced copies, so for mono jobs we print to file through Lexmark, then send prn file directly to C550.

On the whole we're pleased.

Regards

Rob

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