CWS mixed media has lower max paper weight than supported by machine?

[bcr]

Hi folks,

I'm trying to insert pre-printed covers via the post-inserter on my Ricoh c5310, which are then being centre stapled into booklets.

The stock is 250gsm, untextured, pre-printed. These cover sheets are jamming often. This stock has a habit of jamming when printing on paper weight 7 (216.1 to 256gsm) so in the past I defined it as paper weight 8 (256.1 to 300gsm) which generally solved the jamming..

Problem is, when I try to define a cover, or any mixed media in CWS, it's limiting the available paper weights to a maximum of paper weight 7. I can't figure out why this is.

I double checked and both the post-inserter and booklet maker support stock up to 350gsm.

I will probably submit a support request to Ricoh. But in the meantime, I wondered if anyone has encountered similar and whether they have any tips to get these sheets to feed through without jamming. Should i be changing something for the paper type in advanced paper settings on the machine? Or even the type of paper?

Many thanks!

 

[bcr]

update: i thought i'd try increasing the thickness of the paper stock in the advanced settings of the machine's paper catalogue.
but the post-inserter does not allow you to select items from the paper catalogue. you have to manually specify the size, weight and type. so i've drawn a blank there.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

What is the interior weight? Perhaps you can trick it into thinking the interior weight is 20# instead of say 70#? I've done this many times on our Versant with no quality issues.

 

[bcr]

What is the interior weight? Perhaps you can trick it into thinking the interior weight is 20# instead of say 70#? I've done this many times on our Versant with no quality issues.

interior is 80gsm. it won't let me choose such a heavy weight as the cover for the interior pages whilst also centre stapling it..

further update: I think i wasn't locking the pages in place correctly in the post-inserter. It's got a bit of a weird page size adjustment where you seemingly can't close it fully until it picks up and lifts the paper in the air. so i think about half of the paper jams were probably on account of that.

 

[tommyboy]

Hello BCR. I also have a Ricoh Pro 5300S, 2020 version. I've done many books, with many different kinds of stocks/thickness's. I have noticed similar instances and the service guys cannot figure out things, because there is no answer.....yet!
The pre-printed cover can be called "pre-printed", or "blank", but if errors are coming up because the page count is too much for the media selection, then YES, you have to decrease the GSM chosen for that stock. And things will print, but.....I've noticed other things like scratches that happen when the cover goes through to marry up with the pages, probably because the toner is getting softened and hits a thing or two before dropping into the finisher to stitch with the pages and fold.
These things are not fixable, at least that is what I am being told. The service rep cannot do any more, and he has tried multiple times, changing parts etc. But to no avail.
I did try printing the cover and pages all together in one pass and sometimes that helps, but honestly, this machine is really just not capable of doing booklets without marking/scratching along the way. Too bad, because the finished print looks very nice.... WITHOUT THE SCRATCHES RICOH!

 

[bcr]

Hello BCR. I also have a Ricoh Pro 5300S, 2020 version. I've done many books, with many different kinds of stocks/thickness's. I have noticed similar instances and the service guys cannot figure out things, because there is no answer.....yet!
The pre-printed cover can be called "pre-printed", or "blank", but if errors are coming up because the page count is too much for the media selection, then YES, you have to decrease the GSM chosen for that stock. And things will print, but.....I've noticed other things like scratches that happen when the cover goes through to marry up with the pages, probably because the toner is getting softened and hits a thing or two before dropping into the finisher to stitch with the pages and fold.
These things are not fixable, at least that is what I am being told. The service rep cannot do any more, and he has tried multiple times, changing parts etc. But to no avail.
I did try printing the cover and pages all together in one pass and sometimes that helps, but honestly, this machine is really just not capable of doing booklets without marking/scratching along the way. Too bad, because the finished print looks very nice.... WITHOUT THE SCRATCHES RICOH!

thanks Tommy! good to hear from another user.

in this case it's not about exceeding the number of allowed pages or thickness though.

when i'm in CWS, even for a one page sheet, if i got to Mixed Media I cannot select anything from any tray above paper weight 7. Which makes no sense to me!

 

[bcr]

today's update:

The covers are jamming from the post inserter just after they go around the second bend and down into the machine. I'm pretty confident that if I were able to set it at paper weight 8 then this would solve itself.

Today I am sending the covers through the bypass tray instead, as this has a straighter path, so far it is not jamming. It does mean, however, that i pay a double click charge, which i'm not thrilled about.

I've logged a call with Ricoh to look into why I can't select the higher paper weights from mixed media. The first line tech had not heard it before so they're looking into it.

 

[bcr]

today's learnings:

- I have found that I can select higher than paper weight 7 from mixed media if I change Finisher Ouput to "face up" instead of "face down".

- Problem is this then disables any stapling.

- I checked the manual again and it does support up to paper weight 9 for saddle stitched paper (albeit in small quantities). But i've tried it with just two sheets to no avail. It's greyed out.

 

[Dmiller35]

While I don't have experience with this exact machine, we have used Ricohs for many years. We've found that sometimes issues like this are a simple option that needs to be turned on in the service menus. I would coordinate with your tech to try and look into that. There are so many menus & submenus that it can be really hard to find something if you don't know what you're looking for. If a tech is not familiar with that option, it could be that they just don't know that it exists. There's been a few instances over the years where we know we should be able to do something but CWS won't let us. I've even had options that need to be turned back on after firmware updates.

 

[bcr]

While I don't have experience with this exact machine, we have used Ricohs for many years. We've found that sometimes issues like this are a simple option that needs to be turned on in the service menus. I would coordinate with your tech to try and look into that. There are so many menus & submenus that it can be really hard to find something if you don't know what you're looking for. If a tech is not familiar with that option, it could be that they just don't know that it exists. There's been a few instances over the years where we know we should be able to do something but CWS won't let us. I've even had options that need to be turned back on after firmware updates.

Thanks! I suspect it's either something like this or there is perhaps a dependence upon another piece of hardware which I don't have. Tech is going to refer it upwards as he was completely stumped by it.

Does anyone have a service manual they could send me out of curiosity?