Imagepress 8000 on its way!!!

[mm52978]

So we are going out on a limb here. We currently run a Konica C8000 and run 85-100k copies a month all 12x18. The Konica is garbage. We are usually down 2-3 days a week with service there for 4hrs per visit. We tried to be better person and ask for upgrade cause they refuse to replace it. We tried to upgrade to 1085. GE/Konica finance would not extend our terms. So they decided to let us go. We just signed for new Imagepress 8000. We are rolling Konica out back and telling lease company to pick up for lack of performance.

I am here looking for 2 things.

Any comments on new 8000/10000 We got competitive lease with way better click charges.
Any help or suggestions on how to get out of lease with Konica and GE for lack of performance. VPs at Konica said I was long way from replacement. Been fighting for 15 months.

Any info on both situations would be great.

 

[Craig]

Did you get any type of documentation like a Customer Expectation Document? This would have outlined what YOU need to provide for the machine, machine performance as well as service. To make a broad statement that it it garbage YOU need to make sure it is in a proper DIGITAL environment. Is it climate controlled in both warm and cold months? Is it on a press floor sucking in offset powder all day long?

As long as you have done everything correctly on your end and have some documentation on the performance of the machine, you may have a leg to stand on.

That being said, are you dealing with KM directly or a dealership? The reason I ask is they have their own leasing agency (though it may be operated by GE).

 

[mm52978]

We have been documenting everything. To all service people and VP of service and sales. I went as high up the chain as I could. I got attention but with the C8000 being phased out the only replacement requires Rip and engine so it's costly for them. We did use Konica direct. I can't blame the service team as they go above and beyond to try and make us happy but machine is a lemon. Hopefully they will suck up the balance of the lease. We are still using Konica for C7000 and 1052 and 951 so it shows we are committed to them.

Now on to Canon. Keeping fingers crossed it performs better than C8000. I'll will keep this going for everyone as there is not much info on the new Canon presses.

 

[PrintingFools]

I would be interested to hear what happens with the balance of the lease. As we had very good documentation of a Xerox costing us 100s of thousands in bad jobs , reprints and lost income. They still sued us for the balance of the lease. It was a total nightmare. Xerox also sued another printer in town with the same "Lemon Machine" problems. The only thing you have on your side is that you have other machines still with them. That might be your saving grace. Keep us updated. We are are a printer in Las Vegas www.redlinelv.com

 

[MailGuru]

I would be interested to hear what happens with the balance of the lease. As we had very good documentation of a Xerox costing us 100s of thousands in bad jobs , reprints and lost income. They still sued us for the balance of the lease. It was a total nightmare. Xerox also sued another printer in town with the same "Lemon Machine" problems. The only thing you have on your side is that you have other machines still with them. That might be your saving grace. Keep us updated. We are are a printer in Las Vegas www.redlinelv.com

Interesting............... I've never found Xerox to be problematic with a machine that does not live up to the CED. Years ago, they early-terminated the lease on our original DC5000, and replaced it with a DC8000AP. No questions asked. Even gave us color cick credits for the bad jobs on the 5000. With one of our new Versant 2100's, we kept getting an intermittent jam error code, when there was no jam. They worked on the printer off and on for a couple of weeks, but, could not fix the problem. They finally isolated it to be a problem with the Fiery EX-P RIP. They promptly pulled and replaced it with a brand new EX-P RIP (a $75,000 expense) at no charge to us, again, no questions asked. It's now running smoothly and we haven't had a problem since. We are dealing direct with Xerox (not through a dealer), and, at least, here, in our neck of the woods, they seem to bend over backwards and save no expense to make sure we are happy with their equipment and service.

 

[AP90]

Interesting............... I've never found Xerox to be problematic with a machine that does not live up to the CED. Years ago, they early-terminated the lease on our original DC5000, and replaced it with a DC8000AP. No questions asked. Even gave us color cick credits for the bad jobs on the 5000. With one of our new Versant 2100's, we kept getting an intermittent jam error code, when there was no jam. They worked on the printer off and on for a couple of weeks, but, could not fix the problem. They finally isolated it to be a problem with the Fiery EX-P RIP. They promptly pulled and replaced it with a brand new EX-P RIP (a $75,000 expense) at no charge to us, again, no questions asked. It's now running smoothly and we haven't had a problem since. We are dealing direct with Xerox (not through a dealer), and, at least, here, in our neck of the woods, they seem to bend over backwards and save no expense to make sure we are happy with their equipment and service.

Guru, we have had the same experiences as you have with Xerox bending over backwards to accommodate us. We haven't had anything as costly as a new RIP needed, but there have been a few things that they have done without even so much as a hiccup. I also had a tech drive 2 hours at about 6pm at night to our place because a customer in his area with a 1000i had his server crash, and the crash wiped his laptop clean too. He drove to our place and was able to reload the software on his computer from our server and went back to install at his customers site. I don't think he left our place until 9pm or so.

Just proves what these guys are willing to do for their customers.

 

[mm52978]

Everyone...I will say this about Konica local service. They are great!! The Advocate will do anything and everything to make sure we are happy (at the time of his visit and when hes home on the weekends) He goes out of his way answering emails at all hours helping through codes that i can fix, he rearranges his techs schedules just to make us happy. The problem we are having is with the higher ups. No one wants to take responsibility for a bad machine. So I have gone all the way to the area VP to only hear that GE wont extend us anymore credit. I offered to redo the lease to make everyone's life happy and not go the lawyer route, but Konica has no pull and let us walk. I have been shocked at the lack of communication with the higher ups. They basically ignore all emails from us. No response from the lease people either. Konica has stated they informed the leasing company but they will not give me the contact at GE. So I called their bluff and signed for the Canon 8000. Now they have to deal with the leasing company too.

I will keep all in the loop on install from Canon, service from Canon, and of course the quality of the prints and up time we experience.

 

[mm52978]

Update....
Delivery of Imagepress 8000 went as smooth as can be. On time, clean install. All items worked, not one issue with startup. So far all is great. Ran test sheets of the hardest jobs that the Konica 8000 could not touch. Color so far seems amazing, smooth greys, bright colors, and can barely feel toner on sheet. The halftones print amazing. Really looks like offset on gloss paper. I have ran over 20,000 clicks in 2 days(part time with learning curve, 4-5 hours a day). I have had one jam so far. I have ran everything from 16pt uncoated, to 80# gloss text, to 12 page self cover books. Nothing stopped it yet. The speed is amazing. The 40 pages a minute, 2 sided 12x19 just kills the Konica. We will easily have more production hours per day with this machine. The registration so far without any paper catalog setup is perfect. Front to back, side to side is dead on. Paper feed from the trays is flawless. No doubles, no jams.

Again, I have nothing against Konica, or service. We still run our 7000, 1052 and 951. The 8000 machine just could not produce on a daily basis. I will give updated count next week. We have 2 huge runs, 12 versions of 6x9 postcards on 100# gloss cover, and another 30,000 5.5 x 8.5 postcards on 12 pt c1s. Also have tons of 80# gloss text to run.

 

[namelessentity]

How do solids look on uncoated sheets? How about linen?

 

[mm52978]

This machine is amazing so far. It burns through card stock like a press. Did a post card job, 12 versions 3500 sheets 13 x 19 2 sided, 2 hours complete. Loaded all trays, all perfect from tray to tray. Color is holding ok from 1st to last sheet. There is some small magenta/cyan shift but nothing to even worry about. I have color specialist coming in Friday for all specific settings and to see where the shift might be coming from. Will be trying the textured stocks next week. Have an order for postcards on Felt, and some business cards on linen.

 

[Barrybw]

Installed 2 Imagepress 10,000 last month. The machines are high quality compared to the 7010 that they replaced. The issues we ran into are when installed the color was very saturated. The Canon color specialist didn't have a clue how to adjust. After 3 weeks we did our own color profiles and they print much better. Some double feed issues on 80# coated text. Quality and speed are excellent.

 

[mm52978]

So we had the color guy here today. Setup Colorlynx, but not totally sold on the final results. Color seems a little washed out. The blacks are less, and the shadows not so defined. Again, color is all based on preference, so take that how you like. I do think overall the standard setup was a little over saturated, but way better than the Konica. As of today, we hit ht 55,000 clicks. A normal month for us is 85-90k, with high months of 110k. I hope to be up there to this quantity soon.This week was full production, with trainer yesterday and color guy today and we still knocked out 20k plus. I am impressed. Machine is great.

Time will tell, i will keep everyone in the loop.

 

[mm52978]

Alright everyone...here is the feedback all have been waiting for.
The Imagepress has amazed me so far. We are going on week 4, hit 115,000 so far. This is all 12x18/13x19. One service call due to small tiny piece came lose and unscrewed. I am assuming came loose during transport. Machine never jams, never miss-feeds. We have run 20# to 16pt Uncoated with not one problem. Front to back registration is perfect through entire run, no moving, skewing, or jumping. The finishing of jobs offline has changed so much from the Konica C8000, its a dream for the bindery. Trifolds setup once and never have to worry about drifitng fold lines, scoring is a breeze, no crazing or anything.

Here is the catch.....still trying to pin this down. Maybe someone has seen this. The color seems to be saturated. Nothing looks bad at all. Every job is better than what we got off the Konica, but all shadows and such just seem to be to much. I do calibrations as suggested. The reason i know this is a little off, i am going through toner like crazy. Today we hit 115,000. I have burned through 10 bottle sof toner on each CMYK. That seems like an aweful lot of toner per 1000. I had the color guys here to set up Colorlynx but i was not thrilled with the end result. It really changes the finished look, and just not a good look. It takes all the blacks out, and makes it look like now contrast. The reds are way down, and the flesh tones look like death....lol. So i wont use the ColorLynx. Next week I have a EFI expert coming to maybe show me some stuff. I am not looking for any special ICC profiles or anything because we use a few different Trade Printers for our large runs, and i think it will make a mess of our quality. I am not too familiar with setting one up and using one, just dont like variables. If i print 500 pcs here, and 100,000 and my trade guy, they are so close. (not on the Imagepress yet as its over saturated, the Konica was good for that, but never ran long enough or consistent enough)

So in all I have nothing negative at all to say. Amazing when a vendor cares.....Konica can care less that they lost my service business. I guess they dont need the little guy money.

I will update one more time next week after the EFI guy comes in

 

[arossetti]

Work with the EFI rep to build a profile, not having one is silly.

 

[MacDaddy]

So we are going out on a limb here. We currently run a Konica C8000 and run 85-100k copies a month all 12x18. The Konica is garbage. We are usually down 2-3 days a week with service there for 4hrs per visit. We tried to be better person and ask for upgrade cause they refuse to replace it. We tried to upgrade to 1085. GE/Konica finance would not extend our terms. So they decided to let us go. We just signed for new Imagepress 8000. We are rolling Konica out back and telling lease company to pick up for lack of performance.

I am here looking for 2 things.

Any comments on new 8000/10000 We got competitive lease with way better click charges.
Any help or suggestions on how to get out of lease with Konica and GE for lack of performance. VPs at Konica said I was long way from replacement. Been fighting for 15 months.

Any info on both situations would be great.

Sorry about the issues you had. We have a km 8000 for almost 3 years. Runs good in spurts then a issue and fight it with service calls. To many issues. We did not complain much but talked to a fellow printer that had issues and km replaced there 8000 with 1085 and they love it. So we talked with KM and they admitted 8000 had issues and it was costing them money. We worked a deal to replace machine going back to lease bank. New lease better rate a rebate and lower click charge and our total monthly cost is going down.

 

[Barrybw]

Follow-up on Installed 2 Imagepress 10,000 from May 2016. I'm still having color consistency issues. Also getting paper size errors when doing a machine calibration. Just recently tried the ColorLynx system that Canon had us buy, that so far will not work, we are working directly with the developer. The Canon 10,000 specialist have been here twice and are coming back a third time later this week. Wondering what others are experiencing on the Imagepress 10,000

 

[Posterhead]

I would be interested to hear what happens with the balance of the lease. As we had very good documentation of a Xerox costing us 100s of thousands in bad jobs , reprints and lost income. They still sued us for the balance of the lease. It was a total nightmare. Xerox also sued another printer in town with the same "Lemon Machine" problems. The only thing you have on your side is that you have other machines still with them. That might be your saving grace. Keep us updated. We are are a printer in Las Vegas www.redlinelv.com

If you hear what happens to the Xerox lease, can you let me know ?...thanks http:// www.posterhead.com