Konica Minolta 6500 - Thoughts

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Km6500

Km6500

I've had a KM6500 for about 20 months and run an average of 100K to 120K click/month. At first - perfect. In the last 12 months however, if I can get 4 days in a row of production I'm very lucky. Then I'm down for 2 or 3 days. Has anyone else had this experience and what has KM done for you?

 

[Whygen]

By all accounts the 6501e is a different beast to the 6500....
They (KM) have endeavoured to iron out previous problems with
various hardware/software changes...

The quality the new rip (304+ or Feiry 305) is significant.

We have had our press for a couple of months now and we experienced
significant problems with paper jamming initially - this was largely down to paper type
and the environment. We have also experienced problems with registration (sheet to sheet)
and still trying to solve this one - it usually occurs on higher weighted stock - 250gsm and over - difficult when printing postcards with borders - 8 up - and then trying to guillotine them accuratley around the borders..

Other than that the press has functioned reasonably well - we did "beast" it the first month doing over 300k A4 clicks.

Think its a reasonably good press for the price....

 

[dgraves8rd]

We have had one for about 2 years now and am looking at acquiring another one. I think it is well worth a closer look. The price doesn't even compare to the Xerox. You could probably buy three of the Minolta's to one of the Xerox. I personally like the quality of the Minolta over the Xerox. I don't like the shine off the Xerox. Minolta looks more like offset. We have the hi-end saddle finisher and folding unit on ours. For some odd reason, we run mostly books on ours. Ours does jam some, but a technician is usually on-site in 1-2 hours and fixes it. Then we are usually jam free for a few months. We put about 300,000 a month on ours. I have spoke with others who own the Xerox 5-7000 and they report jamming also. If you could purchase 2-3 Minolta's vs. the Xerox. You could have 2-3 times the throughput. I have spoke with individuals who own 6 of these and run them non-stop. As with any digital machine, make sure you have good service (close to your area).
Ours is an Ikon 650. Same engine, different software. Currently looking at a KM 6500. Hope this helps.

 

[random]

300,000 a month?!??! Do you run 24/7? What size paper are you printing onto?

 

[SJG888]

ImagePress range without a doubt. Gloss Optimaization technolgy, Image Smoothness, All trays support upto 300GSM, Ultimate in terms of productivity and True 1200 dpi resolution, not interpolated that you see on the specs of xerox and stuff like that. 1 dot contains CMYK compared to the others which put down 1 colour only per dot. You need 4 of them just to match the ImagePress on quality, hence 2400 dpi cliams etc.....which is not true DPI. Oh yes and be aware there is a trade of on quality vs speed on new xerox ap, a buddy of mine mentioned that if you want speed you may have to sacrifice on quality as the gloss optimaztion turns off.......if you want quality you have to run it at slower speed..................hhhhhhhmmmmmmm

 

[Erniek]

KM6500 comment

KM6500 comment

We have a 6500 with a Fiery that is just under 2 years old and for the first year it ran great. This past year we have had increasingly more service calls.
It seems as though the machine is starting to wear out and we aren't doing the kind of volume that most others are doing in a month. The copy quality when running well is excellent and the capabilities are many, we just thought it would hold up better than it has. For instance, we now are being currently told that we should be using certain papers and weights but from day one we ran most any paper without any problems. Now we need to address paper issues.
I wonder if we should contact KM directly instead of listening to our copier service company. Anyone deal directly with KM?

 

[random]

the less volume you do the worse this machine will run.

 

[PrintingBob]

Xerox 242 vs KM5501

Xerox 242 vs KM5501

just joined. First post. We are an in-plant shop with offset and ancient B&W digital capability. We are looking to upgrade to a color unit. Volume is about 50,000 per month 20,000 of which is B & W.

We've narrowed our search down to either the Xerox 242 or the KM 5501. Is there anyone here who has experience on both that could give the good and bad of both from first hand experience.

Thanks.
PrintingBob

 

[JaimeZ]

The Xante Ilumina is an OEM of Okidata C9600/C9800 Series.

 

[Craig]

Oh yes and be aware there is a trade of on quality vs speed on new xerox ap, a buddy of mine mentioned that if you want speed you may have to sacrifice on quality as the gloss optimaztion turns off.......if you want quality you have to run it at slower speed..................hhhhhhhmmmmmmm

Not a trade in quality, they still print with the same quality, the output has a more matte finish. Their is no "gloss optimization" on a DocuColor 5000-8000AP just 2 print speeds, one for the higher gloss and one for a more matte finish.

 

[rsands]

i seen samples of our files printed on a KM6500 which is in a building a KM engineer is full time in and they were terrible! black was fine and it didn't loose its shine from the silk media but the toner streaks were terrible on colours. maybe i found an unlucky one but why pitch to me to buy one and produce terrible quality...

 

[random]

True 1200 dpi resolution, not interpolated that you see on the specs of xerox and stuff like that. 1 dot contains CMYK compared to the others which put down 1 colour only per dot. You need 4 of them just to match the ImagePress on quality, hence 2400 dpi cliams etc.....which is not true DPI.

Interesting, what do you mean by this?

 

[Craig]

I thought this was covered on another post... I'll dig, it could have been on another forum though.

 

[random]

I remember that thread it was about 1-bit and 8-bit printers and resolution. This comment is stating that it is not true 2400dpi rather a interpolated 2400dpi. This is claiming that the xerox kit is lower resolution but it 'makes up' the dots in between. This is a bold claim and I think he should elaborate on this.

 

[Craig]

Let's get real, do you REALY see a difference in the resolution between ANY of the higher end digital devices? They all produce good solids, halftones that are smooth, and don't look like newsprint. They all compliment offset quality. My customer doesn't care how many bits, or if it's interpolated or not, just that it looks good on paper. I think the manufactures blow the DPI thing out of proportion, does it print well or not, does it meet or exceed you expectations, those are a few questions that are important.

 

[dondahl]

i am new so i am not sure where to post my ? but here it is.
I bought a 6500 (with fiery)at a martini fri lunch on the 31st of nov. it was a now or never price.
i havent paid for it yet the financing has not been completed but here is my problem
we print mostly 20 full color photo cards our old doc 12 was great but slow, but the 6500 photo's are
terrible, our tec came by and lowere the color to 85% but now the photo's seem grainy
and the other colors are now lightend as well. a bad mistake now could put me out of busiess
please help me and let me know if i shold return this copier or if it can reproduce good color.
Signed desperate in seattle
Don

 

[random]

Your copier is capable of exceptional photo printing. Unfortuantly it sounds like your service agent has no clue so at this point I would pull the pin on the financing until it works. Surely you would have tested this on a demo unit?

 

[lfelton]

Hi Don. You might want to start a new thread in future, specific to your problem rather than tagging it onto an "old" thread like this one.

We have a 6501 (updated replacement for the 6500) with a Fiery IC305 RIP and are printing very accurate colour, good tints, gradients and solids.

A lot will depend on your RIP, if you don't have the a IC304 (Creo) or IC305 (Fiery) with a spectrophotometer then you are going to find it much harder to get good accurate colour. All of this should have been explained to you by your sales rep.

One other thing to consider is the "line1/2" vs "dot1/2" setting. Line1/2 will give you better photographic output and tints. If your RIP is set to dot1/2, try setting it to line1 and you will probably notice a better result.

Final point: good service is at least as important as the badge on the hardware. I guess you meant to say that you purchased the machine on the 31st of October, not November 31st? If it's been in a month and you're still not happy, it sounds like bad service. If your supplier can't get it printing right in all that time BEFORE they've been paid... well, I'd be thinking seriously about having them take it back.

 

[dondahl]

Craig. you would think I would have... i went to look at the xerox 262 on thursday, while I was
there they showed me the 6500 and all the great stock pics off of it.
then the next day they showed up at my lunch with a too good to be true price..
that day only. So i pulled the trigger without ever really looking at it. It doesn't even have alot
of finishing capabilities I would like.. like upper left staple or large pile exit.
anyway I can live with the shortcomings but I have to print peoples faces the look
normal not sunburned.
So on thanksgiving I am panicked and searching the web for answers.
Thanks for any advice
Don

 

[dondahl]

wrong name

wrong name

sorry Random not Craig
Don