Konica C8000 review and Please HELP!!!!

[csudman]

This wants to make me think that your machine was never correctly set up in the first place. I have no experience with the 8000's but I used to set up the 6500/6501's and 1050's for before they went out on instals. There are alot of steps in setting a machine up which include magnification, restart timing, centering and colour. The fact that your getting such a distorted image makes me thing ether something was incorrectly set up (Service mode settings)
Im assuming this is happening on all jobs/colours/stocks? As for scratching, depending on the types of stock your running, it may just be a reality of that particular stock especially heavy gloss coated stocks

Also as much as of a konica person as I am, your definitely within the frame of mind/business sense were you would want to walk away and go with a new machine.

We are, almost daily, resetting magnification, restart timing, centering. In the service mode.

Today, our 2-3 mil shift showed its head again. Argh.

 

[csudman]

Ok, Its time.

Honestly here, as that is what I have tried to do from day 1. Konica definitely started selling a machine that was not ready for production when we bought it 9 months ago.(this is still my opinion). That said, they have updated several parts that seem to be making a large difference. Also, the techs are getting there heads around the idiosyncrasies of this machine. I can say now, assuming we continue running the way we are, that the machine is reliably producing high quality work.

It took alot of arguing and head scratching, but in the end KM replaced our c8000 with a like machine(100k on it). From there it took another few weeks to get things ironed out. At this point, I have very little to no skew when I print, Colors are looking great and up time is much better.

Would we buy it again? Today yes, before no. I know that no machine is perfect, everyone will have different tendencies/needs. But we are down to 1-2 calls per week. Most of the time they are small issues regarding color. Nothing that completly stops production, but may hold 1 job up for a few days. I still think the parts wear out to quickly, but our service team has increased the amount of spare parts that are stored on our shelves and that helps reduce our downtime.

FWIW, we did have to battle KM to get to this point(and I would have expected the same from any other manufacture). I understand from there perspective replacing the machine came at a large cost to them. But in the end they made the right decision by us.

Thanks for all the help given in this forum, I'll defiantly try to keep this updated as we continue on.

CJ

 

[JayDA]

Ok, Its time.

Honestly here, as that is what I have tried to do from day 1. Konica definitely started selling a machine that was not ready for production when we bought it 9 months ago.(this is still my opinion).
CJ

I had one of the first ones, and I totally agree....it was to early for REAL production. I had a bit easier time of it then you did it seems, but I'm glad it's working out for you.

 

[SDP]

Regarding the C8000, I thought we got a lemon - and I only recently joined Print Planet, but from what I'm reading on this forum, we are experiencing the same issues (good & bad), so I guess I'll have to wait a few months to see if it gets dialed in before we pull the plug. Thanks for all the posts. Tom.

 

[csudman]

Regarding the C8000, I thought we got a lemon - and I only recently joined Print Planet, but from what I'm reading on this forum, we are experiencing the same issues (good & bad), so I guess I'll have to wait a few months to see if it gets dialed in before we pull the plug. Thanks for all the posts. Tom.

FWIW, were going on about 1 service call in 2 weeks. And, it seems to be getting better.

 

[SDP]

C8000

C8000

Thanks! That is good to hear. I hope the same happens for us.
TL

 

[[email protected]]

Good thread.

I don't know why so many dealers don't do thorough pretesting. Every machine I sell and service goes through a lot of stock test prints to make sure everything is working perfectly before it leaves my shop. I keep some of the test prints and send some to the delivery point with the machine as proof of quality and for future benchmarking reference. Every paper source and paper exit point option is benchmarked as well.

I also deal in mailing equipment and we as well as the manufacturer require several sample pieces of mail and envelope stock to make sure the stock will run through the model you are looking at. At that point we will also pre-program your common jobs into the machine so you don't have to waste your time doing that.

Not to toot my own horn but I think if I was in the production market you would all be happier buying from me since if you don't make money and aren't happy, the I don't eat...and I like eating.

...of course sometimes a lemon is just unfixable.

 

[csudman]

Ok, time for another update. At this point, we just wish we would have done something else. Owning this machine is like owning a game of wakamole. One thing after another, and they are always things that screw up our production. We have been fighting a SHEET TO SHEET density issue for 2 months. We've sent 2 sets of samples to the "engineers" with no results. I have jobs I cannot print because each sheet looks completely different. I'm sure they will envetualy get it figured out. We're just exhausted. It never stops. In the last 14 months or whatever we've had the c8000. I think we've had about 1 "good" month of running. (That being 1 call a week or so for smaller issues).

 

[[email protected]]

Are you going to get rid of it? This in no way is discrediting your problems and I believe them to be genuine...

...but I never understood how a product can be the best thing to somebody and the worst thing to someone else...

whether it is the c8000 or a movie, or a digital camera...

I hope it works out for you.

 

[csudman]

Get rid of it. Haha, you must not have read the whole thread. Been their, tried to do that. I'm on number 2 right now. Wish it was gone. KM isn't into buying out our lease. This whole shit storm would have not happened if they did right by us and removed it. But thats not what happened.

CJ

 

[[email protected]]

What do you think you'll go with next or what other brand and model would you have chosen if not this one?

 

[csudman]

Really don't know. xerox, ricoh...

 

[rsands]

csudman...could I ask does your machine go into a status "Machine Warming Up, Please wait a while" after sending one sheet of SRA3 to it? We are sure that this couldn't be right, just wandering if your machine is doing it?

 

[csudman]

Yes. we do a lot odd waiting. also auto density is on. Printing 3 sheets every 500

 

[rsands]

Why are Konica not addressing this serious fault. The fuser temperatures are at 200degrees after the test sheet prints so what it is doing when "warming up" for 5-6 minutes is beyond me. What did Konica say about that fault of warming up so much?

 

[csudman]

No real answer. just that its the way it works. I always assumed it was getting both fusers to temp.

Why are Konica not addressing this serious fault. The fuser temperatures are at 200degrees after the test sheet prints so what it is doing when "warming up" for 5-6 minutes is beyond me. What did Konica say about that fault of warming up so much?

 

[rsands]

Thats the same story I got....i dont see how one test sheet would take so much heat out that it needs to warm up. some serious software fault

 

[csudman]

Among other things.

 

[Emtri]

Would you be able to post some pictures of sheets with some of your issues?

 

[csudman]

Would you be able to post some pictures of sheets with some of your issues?

Here is a link to the dropbox file. Take a look. the shift is visable from the scan, but its a bit more pronouced in person. FYI. This is a print of 10 sheets. This is a SHEET to SHEET issue. Whats interesting, is it is not visible on all projects. Solids seem to be where it really shows up.