Best Machine to buy that's easy to service

[as125583]

Greetings everyone!

I run a small quick print shop inside of my home, and am looking to purchase equipment that is good, but easy to repair/maintain. I currently have a Konica 8050, that I've become pretty familar with, and know the ins and outs, but wanted to see if there are any other brands out there that are similar to repair/maintain. I see a ton of Toshiba copiers on sale, but don't know how hard they are to work on.

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Scorotron Wizard]

Are you looking for new or used?

[as125583]

Used...I can't afford to buy.

I would lease with a service contract (which is what I'm currently doing), but it looks like it makes economical sense to buy a used piece of equipment, and service it myself. I've been around copiers for 20+ years, and have watched techs work on the machines at outfits like Kinko's.

With the right tools and manuals, it seems doable.... I just changed out a couple of heater lamps without any problems.

[Scorotron Wizard]

Well you are not a techie but I rekon if you go for a Minolta Di 251 or 351 you might just get away with it, this machine is quite old now but if you can get a low copycount one you will be laughing, you should get one quite cheaply. they seem to go on forever, all you need to do is change the image unit from time to time. It is possable to turn off the image unit light which will give you extra life between IU changes. The on board diagnostics will allow you to diagnose 90% of the faults, and you can allways get help from this site. If the machine develops a fault you can't cure you can allways get a techie to come out on a time & material basis but do make sure they have experience on the minolta machines. STAY AWAY FROM THE DI2510 DI3510 range they are a lot of trouble!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[knightfall]

you should think about getting a used kyocera mita km3034/4035/5035 print speed is 30/40/50 respectively, they are older models but they will run for ever if treated right. The drum unit, developer unit and fuser unit are whole units and is easy to fix, paper feed unit ass'y comes out with one screw. Of all the copier brands I worked on in 22 years it by far the easiest machine for a technician to work on and is customer friendly as well. Good luck in your search.

[ni311]

Yep, DI251/351 is the right machine for you. Just be careful when you're inserting the toner bottle, you may brake the toner supplying mechanism.

[CanonHPTech]

Saw a small printer out of house the other day who had a Canon IR 600. Pretty reliable machine. Not hard to service outside of the Developing Drum area. The ASI Drums are very expensive, but outside of that, not so bad. May need to stock up on some parts since they are slowing being discontinued on the OEM side. Also will have to learn how to restring wires otherwise replacing coronas will be expensive. If you were looking for just OK print quality, or even just a back-up, the Canon IR 400 isn't bad either, and uses a standard OPC Drum and has no wires. Just need to stock up on feed tires.

[Scorotron Wizard]

Knightfall is right the Kyoceras are good machines I work on them every day, But the maintanence kits are really expensive (but they do 400k+) and some knowlage is required, on the minolta the drum unit is changeable by the customer, it automatically sets up and has the drum and dev unit in one. I have never changed the tyres on the lower trays and only changed a couple on the top universal tray, both of which don't even need a screwdriver and we have hundreds of these machines out. All in all Minolta Di 251 or 351 wii suit you best.

[cobiray]

If you're working on it yourself (i.e. no service agreement) you might be best suited with a machine that has user replaceable parts. A printer with a direct scanning option comes to mind. While they are sometimes cumbersome to make a copy, if it's light volume you might not have an issue with it.

The Ricoh 3800c has such an option and has user replaceable units and was a decent machine.

[iMind]

If you're working on it yourself (i.e. no service agreement) you might be best suited with a machine that has user replaceable parts. A printer with a direct scanning option comes to mind. While they are sometimes cumbersome to make a copy, if it's light volume you might not have an issue with it.

The Ricoh 3800c has such an option and has user replaceable units and was a decent machine.

I fully agree with Cobi, thats a machine that can help you out, replaceable drums development units fusing unit transfer unit, very good hardware. and you´ll get colour too, so that means two in one.
I´ll even say five in one scanning, printing, copying, black and colour