KM 1075 / 1085 vs. Xerox Versant 80 vs Ricoh C7100

[lfelton]

Yes you are right, comparison back to old is unrealistic. I don't see many other printers who have new KM's on Print planet atm. I do see some probs with Versant 80's and Ricoh's in the other posts. Time to push the print button on the C1085 as she done the warmup. We nick-named her "Betty Blue".

Hmmm... at the risk of sounding bitter and twisted, the reason that other printers aren't talking about their new KMs is that we bought KM 8000s and after that experience, we're all now customers of other vendors. To be fair, we buy our presses to run continuously on a single shift (or 1.5 shifts during busy periods), so we put 120-200K large clicks on a month. However, that's what they are meant to be DESIGNED for and since swapping manufacturer, that's what they do with well over 90% LESS down time compared to KM (I kid you not).

 

[Baldbug]

Hmmm... at the risk of sounding bitter and twisted, the reason that other printers aren't talking about their new KMs is that we bought KM 8000s and after that experience, we're all now customers of other vendors. To be fair, we buy our presses to run continuously on a single shift (or 1.5 shifts during busy periods), so we put 120-200K large clicks on a month. However, that's what they are meant to be DESIGNED for and since swapping manufacturer, that's what they do with well over 90% LESS down time compared to KM (I kid you not).

We considered a fully reconditioned KM8000 down here on island but we didn't go down that path. I'm a bit bitter and twisted over the 700i we had but it wasn't so much the actual print unit but the Hicaps, folder, Square folder that gave us constant grief and when I saw those peripherals on the Versant 80 we decided to switch suppliers too

 

[Baldbug]

Well it had to happen, it was only matter of time before we had to log a Service Call. We had a small problem with the FS532 Finisher Unit which produced an error message resulting in halting production on the press. The press was down for about 30 minutes until a technician arrived. If happens again I now know how to fix it myself.

Also I've had some pre diecut labels come off A4 size sheets after the fuser, but I now have a workaround to lower the temperature in the lower fuser roller. I had two sheets in 800 sheets with labels detaching.

I had a problem yesterday with a small calendar booklet with pre-printed covers to be inserted onto the body of the Calendar, but a phone call to a KM Trainer soon had us up and running again.

We haven't had any other probs with this digital press apart from the occasional paper jam on 80gsm bond stock only.

 

[PrintIT]

Hmmm... at the risk of sounding bitter and twisted, the reason that other printers aren't talking about their new KMs is that we bought KM 8000s and after that experience, we're all now customers of other vendors. To be fair, we buy our presses to run continuously on a single shift (or 1.5 shifts during busy periods), so we put 120-200K large clicks on a month. However, that's what they are meant to be DESIGNED for and since swapping manufacturer, that's what they do with well over 90% LESS down time compared to KM (I kid you not).

Hah - That was EXACTLY our experience with the KM 8000. We're now running Xerox 1000's and have been absolutely happy with them coming up to a year after install now. We looked at the new KM's before getting our second 1000, but they looked way too similar to the 8000 for us to be comfortable with them.

 

[AP90]

Hah - That was EXACTLY our experience with the KM 8000. We're now running Xerox 1000's and have been absolutely happy with them coming up to a year after install now. We looked at the new KM's before getting our second 1000, but they looked way too similar to the 8000 for us to be comfortable with them.

While I've never had a KM machine, when dealing with their sales I was pretty unimpressed. Took me calling 3 times over 2 months just to get a meeting set up with them. Then when I was questioning them about service, they seemed proud of 1 tech within an hour of me and a backup 2 hours away. But they were still better than canon and Ricoh. A year later I still haven't received a call from either.

Went with a Xerox c75 as a trial. Service was great and so was the machine. Ended up sending it back for a 1000i. Xerox has 3 techs within 45 mins of me and is training a 4th. Machine is a beast and techs are awesome. I've read in the past how people thought xerox was all about bottom line and didn't care about the customer. I've yet to see any of that. It would take a lot for another company to switch me over.

 

[Baldbug]

Well it's 3 months since the install of the C1085 and only real problem I have is the Fiery 308 Server running 5.7 Command Workstation software which keeps on failing, locking up, freezing etc. At the moment the Command Workstation software has wound back to version 5.5 which is what was installed when the whole system came 3 months ago. We'll run Vers. 5.5 for a while before we upgrade to 5.6 and then maybe up to 5.7.

As for the C1085 every job we've run on it so far has been completed with no problems. I still like the way the printed jobs come off the press stacked flat with no curling, the registration is very accurate, and ability to over gloss or under gloss quickly, fuser temperature control. We are still very happy with the C1085. I ran a job this week with Gold Colour in the job and duplex. I increased the fuser temp to give gloss effect and darkened the image brightness and we ended up with nice CMYK Gold effect. 1,000 x Christmas Postcards printed duplex in about 6 minutes.

 

[Baldbug]

4 months on and we through the Fiery 308 Server failures and lockups. All smooth running now. One job was 10,000 x SRA3 250gsm System Board colour clics today which printed no probs. Small components in the C1085 are coming up occasionally for replacement and the techies come and do the replacement and show us few more things about the press. We've just put on another staff member who will run the press as he gets trained up on it. If we had run this job on our previous press it would have come out curled but with the C1085 and its Rehumidfier all the sheets came out flat.

 

[Print_Curious]

Hi Baldug
New member here. Thanks for the continuous updates on the 1085. How are the Call out times on KM's Service. Is there a 'maximum 2 hours response time' on the service contract? We have been with Ricoh for a few number of years and their service and support is excellent. We are looking for a new press and was quite impressed with the 1085, but still reluctant to change from Ricoh to KM. Any comments?

 

[Baldbug]

Hi Baldug
New member here. Thanks for the continuous updates on the 1085. How are the Call out times on KM's Service. Is there a 'maximum 2 hours response time' on the service contract? We have been with Ricoh for a few number of years and their service and support is excellent. We are looking for a new press and was quite impressed with the 1085, but still reluctant to change from Ricoh to KM. Any comments?

The Service Technicians are based in our small city and do Service Calls anywhere along the coast here in Tassie. The Technician usually arrives within the hour, but in the contract I think it states a max time of 4 hours. The C1085 is online back to Service Technicians so they can see what probs occur and what needs to be replaced as far as filters/parts etc.

 

[Baldbug]

Well it's Christmas Eve here in Aus. 250 x 36 page programmes being printed atm on the C1085 and then a 1500 SRA3 run and its all over for this year. As for the C1085 its just maintenance with replacing filters etc, the server has settled down and runs very well the press just prints whatever stock we load it with. I have a 45,000 clic job coming up in the New Year for the C1085.

Merry Christmas to all of you where ever you are on this great planet, and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all.

 

[digitalro]

Hello Baldug,

I recenlty demo-ed a Konica Minolta C1085. one of my test was to print for each color a page with 40%. the test for 40% black had some waves - and the grey was not uniform. I repeated the test on another c1085 and on a c1070. same problem. I also saw this problem on C7000.

I understand this is a common issue for konica machines. The black drum is very close to the transfer zone and the machine's vibrations generate these waves-ununiform colors on the paper.

after first demo-ed they installed an upgrade roll between the transfer and the black drum but the final result is also very similar.


what do you say about this problem?

V.

 

[Baldbug]

Hello Baldug,

I recenlty demo-ed a Konica Minolta C1085. one of my test was to print for each color a page with 40%. the test for 40% black had some waves - and the grey was not uniform. I repeated the test on another c1085 and on a c1070. same problem. I also saw this problem on C7000.

I understand this is a common issue for konica machines. The black drum is very close to the transfer zone and the machine's vibrations generate these waves-ununiform colors on the paper.

after first demo-ed they installed an upgrade roll between the transfer and the black drum but the final result is also very similar.


what do you say about this problem?

V.

The days of testing are over for me. I've got a 50,000 clic greyscale run to do today and tomorrow which no doubt will have some 40% black in it on most pages. So as for having wavy lines in the 40% area I can't say that I will ever notice it. What I do notice is that when I do the calibration the black is always out of calibration more than the other 3 colours. I only calibrate for two types of stock matt and gloss and use both these calibrations for all the 80+ stock setups in the Paper Catalogue.

 

[Baldbug]

I started printing the job on Monday night about 7pm and left the C1085 running at about 10.30pm. Reloaded another lot of covers and started the C1085 on Tuesday morning at 6.30am and continually ran it till 4pm. All up print run was 44,800 b/w Clics A4S, plus covers inserted, plus booklet collating, folding, stapling and Square Edge finishing on the Morgana 104 on the end of the C1085.

During the print run I had one paper jam from tray 1 in the first 20 sheets and it was a "guide to close to stock" error, I had one cover misfeed in the PI2 Tray and one error in the server when C1085 stopped communicating with the server, apart from those 3 probs the C1085 performed beautifully. I had to do a Staple Cartridge change over as well.

When I replenished the covers in the PI2 tray (every 300 covers or so) I ran a colour print job to keep all the colour components in the machine turning etc.

At the end of the print run there is a small error code saying "Toner filter clogged - call technician" but the C1085 is still working ok.

So I had very good print run on this job on the C1085. I ran the job myself with no other staff in attendance. The finished booklets had to be trimmed on the opposite side of the fold to a trimmed size of 105mm wide which I did on the guillo. Booklet finished size is 105mm wide x 210mm deep and 56 pages plus cover.

 

[Baldbug]

So I called in the Techie and he did the filter changes and he decided to change the Fuser Belt. The 44,800 clic A4 Short Edge Feed left too much fuser belt degradation which would show up on the next job larger than A4S. This took about 1 hour to replace and I am up and running again with a new Fuser belt.

 

[AP90]

So I called in the Techie and he did the filter changes and he decided to change the Fuser Belt. The 44,800 clic A4 Short Edge Feed left too much fuser belt degradation which would show up on the next job larger than A4S. This took about 1 hour to replace and I am up and running again with a new Fuser belt.

we mainly print booklets with our xerox 1000i and use 11x17 stock. It creates a massively damaged fuser belt outside of the 11 inches of the stock, but our booklets print just fine with the belt damaged like that because of consistent paper feeding alignment from the machine. So Xerox gave me another fuser belt system so I can just swap them out when I'm running larger jobs. Takes maybe 10 mins or so to do myself. And ends up saving Xerox a lot of money than replacing the belt every time I need to run a larger job.
Might be something to look into if you run a lot of jobs like this.

 

[Baldbug]

We'll probably end up doing that too. I had 3 fusers for the Xerox 700i, one for A4S one for A3 and one for SRA3, which all used to get the belt changed every few months. We've run about 5,000 booklets since the press was installed. The belt looked fine to keep running A4S.

 

[noelward]

You might want to expand your search to include Canon. The C7011 is a 70 ppm machine that's been around for a few years, and the new C8000VP is an 80 ppm box. There's also a new 100 ppm model, the C10000VP. In my opinion, output from these is a step up from Ricoh and KM. I saw this at Canon Expo in NYC back in the fall and also at Graph Expo. I'd heard about it but was surprised to see the print quality and some of its features in action.

The C10000 and C8000 have a number of built-in color management features and according to the specs, they can run a wide range of media, including sheets up to 30" long, as well as things like textured stock and vellums. In looking at the output from the Canons I thought it looked a lot less like toner and more like offset, if that comparison matters to you. You get a choice of servers, either a new high-end Fiery or the Canon PRISMAsync which comes to Canon from the acquisition with Océ. Both are good, so it just depends on your needs.

Noel Ward |Managing Director | Brimstone Hill Associates

 

[nick.dring]

Hi we run a C1070. This June it will be two years. It's been pretty trouble free apart from a static issue that was resolved with a change to the hardware and a new fuser that resolved an issue printing envelopes. As we are an internal print center we are the client so we can afford the time to make sure jobs are printed to the best they can be every time and I have to say the KM hasn't let us down. When we were looking at the various products on the market Xerox wasn't an option for us as they didn't have a product that could print banners. We liked the Ricoh but after a long testing session we preferred the image quality of the KM. At Drupa i'll be checking out what's new on the market because I will be obliged to change the KM in 2017. We do around 25k impressions pm. We use the standard RIP (colour optimisation is done before) and we've found it suitable for our needs.

 

[DesignFan]

Thanks Baldbug for providing your experiences so thoroughly, this thread was a great read!

 

[Baldbug]

It's been a while since I posted on this blog about my C1085. Not issues to report, we just walk up to it load it with stock and print with it. Today I ran 200 x 44 page programmes, 5 x lots of double sided postcards, 500 x A4 folded to DL flyers, 500 x Double DL Flyers folded to DL, some Mactac Cast Adhesive stock, some 200gsm gloss stock. No probs, the C1085 just keeps running along. Have a great Easter everyone.