Advice - Considering New Light Production Machines

[crossroads]

Have you seen the new fuser technology they are talking about?

 

[msaeger]

Which technology? The c5100 has an inductive heating unit instead of the lamps traditionally used to heat the fuser. This technology has been used in quite a few of the color 35 - 45 ppm range machines and there was no problem with it in those. If you mean something else let me know.

 

[crossroads]

Here are some words i took from the ricoh website." Maybe it is just words.
" It also includes an elastic fusing belt to ensure better, more consistent transfer and toner adhesion on specialty stocks."

 

[msaeger]

Yes that is a feature new to this machine so I don't know if there will be an improvement from that. We were told it was to improve print quality on textured paper because it would press the toner down into the texture better. That has not been used on a previous machine so I can't say how that will work.

 

[crossroads]

Thank you.

 

[msaeger]

No problem if you want to know anything else just ask.

 

[billp]

We are looking to put our km6500 out to pasture. I have read the many posts regarding light production printers with great interest - its great to read facts. The c5100s & C651ex have similar price point (tbc?), & it appears specifications. Could anybody please suggest which is a better machine and why? thanks heaps! I believe there is difference with toner & fuser assembly, is the registration as good? is the c5100s a c651ex with a facelift? Or is the 651 actually a better machine? Very little 'real' info is in the public domain.... All thoughtful comments respected, cheers!

 

[msaeger]

If you are critical of registration you want the C651ex. The C5100s corrects for lead to trail but front to rear is going off the tray guides like the KM6500 did. If you were happy with the KM registration you probably would be ok with the C5100 but check it out for yourself. The C651 is rated to do more prints per month also so I would look at how many you run a month. The toner is different between the two machines the C5100 says it's toner has a wider color gamut. The fuser is pretty similar, the image creation components are pretty similar.

C651 is easier to service if you care about that

If you are comparing the price between the two make sure to take into account the RIP. The C651 only comes with the higher end RIP and the C5100 can have a cheaper one as well as a higher end one. You can also get a printer only version of the C651 if you don't care about making copies.