Canon C8000VP (used) - need advice!

[plotterraum]

Hi guys and gals,

our main Digital Press right now is a Ricoh C7100X, which we want to keep, -
still, we need another machine a a kind of backup and also to be able to produce different orders in pararell.
we recently got offered an used Canon C8000VP with Fiery B4100 @ a very (VERY) low price, - it is like 2000€ (two thousand) plus shipping costs (500€, I assume). 7 million impressions, good shape right now, - I know we will need to throw some parts at it, but this is also what we did, as we got Ricoh with almost 6 million prints two years ago. So no big deal. We just want to avoid a big one cost at the begining, so are very comfortable with the low price of the Canon.

and still - as it seems, the common opinion here is, that Canon C10000VP/C8000VP is not a very good/very reliable printer? Is it really so? We started our business over 10 years ago with Canon ImageAdv C7055, and had soonafter some C9070, C7260 and C7280 (still have one of those C7280), and have been able to print some really nice, matte quality for many years from those - more or less - office copier.

So I really cannot imagine, that something like C8000VP can be THAT BAD?! We don't really mind possibly higher power costs because of two fusers. - what is most important, is good print quality.

We recenty started to compete more with the usual online print services, so my main Idea for this printer will be printinig commercial materials on stocks between 100 and 200g paper and also DIN Long (21x9,8cm) Flyer on 350g offset paper (I don't mean printing on 21x9,8 material of course - we print it on SRA3 and send it to our Uchida Cutter then). Maybe some standard A4 Brochures as well (for our offline booklet finisher). - Ricoh C7100X will be then used more for more advanced design/art projects.

As far as the monthly volume is concerned, I expect something between 30-50k (A4 equiv.; we mostly print SRA3, so this would be between 15-25k SRA3) per month maximal for now, which we will try to ramp up with more orders. - I also want to service it myself, as I did with all our smaller Canons.

I also have high hopes in the auto-calibration function of the C8000VP + B4100. - this should be really time saving. (is it?). Also, we recently aquired a B6000 controller, so would possibly even get Fiery FS350 Platfrom instead of the standard FS200 of the B4100. Fiery FS150 on our Ricoh C7100x really seems very outdated already, - as it seems, Fiery FreeForm does not support FS150 Platform so good anymore, we also have issues with Uchida Templates for the cutter... -

What do you think? Could it work for us?

Best regards
Michael

 

[SoggyWinter]

I heard from a printshop in California that had 3x C10000VPs and he said they are great for image quality and super reliable. Being in a larger population area probably helps because there will be more production technicians with more experience though.

Don't assume that the B6000 is compatible with the imagepress C8000, but please let us know what you find out if you take the plunge.

Montax Imposter might be an alternative template program.

A lot of Canon equipment requires a cryptographic physical key to access technician mode on the equipment and to unlock the service manuals. If you're getting service from a Canon dealer or Canon corporate their technicians will have those.

 

[plotterraum]

Thank you for your response. - I did not know about any cryptographic keys on canon, - on old machines we were able to do most of the work through service mode, - I assumed, this would be the same here. What you mean, is maybe a different approach, where you connect a service laptop to the machine? To update firmware etc.?
As far as B6000 is concerned - B6000 v1 works for sure, Canon offered C10000VP/C8000VP with this fiery as an interim solution before C10010VP/C9010VP came to the market. We have indeed the v2 version, so not sure, if it will work, - I thought it could be possible to install the software from B6000 v1 onto B6000 v2. B6000 v1 is FS350, and B6000 v2 FS400. Will give it a try and let you know. -

 

[namelessentity]

The 8000/10000 are EOL at the end of 2026. I wouldn't buy one at this time. I think it's a great machine, but you'd be kinda dead in the water come next year when they stop supporting it. We've been running a 10000 basically since it was new. It has some quirks I've complained about, but now that we also have a Xerox Iridesse, I would run Canon any day of the week over Xerox.

Also, service on Canon boxes is all done on the controller, only their Inkjet and Varioprints require a tech laptop key.

 

[plotterraum]

The 8000/10000 are EOL at the end of 2026. I wouldn't buy one at this time. I think it's a great machine, but you'd be kinda dead in the water come next year when they stop supporting it. We've been running a 10000 basically since it was new. It has some quirks I've complained about, but now that we also have a Xerox Iridesse, I would run Canon any day of the week over Xerox.

Also, service on Canon boxes is all done on the controller, only their Inkjet and Varioprints require a tech laptop key.

So you still have your C10000vp? What ist your update plan for it, if it is EOL next year? If I understand you, you invested in Iridesse because you hoped, this would be a good upgrade for Canon, but it did not live to your expectations? Are you going to replace your C10000VP with V1350?

 

[namelessentity]

So you still have your C10000vp? What ist your update plan for it, if it is EOL next year? If I understand you, you invested in Iridesse because you hoped, this would be a good upgrade for Canon, but it did not live to your expectations? Are you going to replace your C10000VP with V1350?

We have our C10000vp until next year and I think we will likely purchase a V1350. I also want to look at Ricoh, but I don't think Ricoh service is very good in our area. We inherited the Iridesse when we purchased another print shop. It's a great printer, it just has a lot of extremely low quality peripherals, namely their terrible feed trays. We use the gold/silver/white quite a bit though, so it gets a lot of use despite the annoyance.