Konica Minolta 6500 - Thoughts

[Craig]

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.

Well said! What good is a machine that don't work?

 

[random]

urrrrghhhhhhhhhhhh! Quick fix for now. Hopefully (if you have a fiery) you atleast have command workstation loaded. Go to color set up and unselect media defines profile. Calibrate using command workstation select the screen you are using and calibrate, select apply calibration to all sets. If calibration is your problem this will atleast cut this out of the equation.

 

[Craig]

Sounds like yet another happy KM customer. Go ahead Randumb, tell them how wonderful the 6500 is, and how it prints without flaws or jams.

I know what Don's problem is, it's the weather, Seattle is so wet and the moisture is causing havoc with the lasers.

Don, you need to move your shop to Arizona

Randumb has said one smart thing for once... pull the pin on financing and run. Is this a new machine or was it installed or a demo before? If it is "used" find out who had it before and why they no longer wanted it. I had a Canon that was sold to me as a demo with 80K on it, found out (too late) it was installed in a University and they had major problems with it before they dumped it.

 

[random]

Thanks for helpfull and insightful comments Craig.

 

[dondahl]

The 6500 has 260,000 copies on it, I assumed it was floor demo because it is so huge.
I don't know for sure i did not ask. I am serisously losing sleep over this, because it is
a 5 year loan, and I am a very small comercial print co. It could wipe us out if it can't
print business cards with exacting colors on the pics, people want to look as good as they can. With the economy in the toilet i am afraid of making a wrong move. i am ticked off that the sales rep gave me about 2 hours to decide and more mad at myself for doing it.
i will run some old jobs 1st thing monday am and see if i can make it look good if i can't I will pull the plug and have it picked up. It seem though that after reading this whole site that i need the graphics dangle and the creol to make it work for a printing co that has
to produce a re-sellable product, To make my life more complicated my wife had major surgery last week and her dad also commited suiside on the same day, no wonder i can't sleep. Well a couple of days at Desert aire (Welcome to Desert Aire - Certified Home and Land Sales) and i will golf my brains
out and drink martin's all day, I will be fine.
Yea it is crappy in seattle
Don
thanks for all the help i will let you know how it turns out,,, something tells me it should be
an interesting week.
Oh yea 30th of october.
and i actaully live in bellevue

 

[random]

Good grief. 200,000k is a spring chicken with regards to this machine and many people on here will tell you it is a competent machine (except those losing market share to one). Sorry to hear about your misfortune.

 

[dondahl]

Thanks random i am trying to make it work.
Don

 

[Craig]

I don't agree that it takes a Creo to produce consistent color. Unless it's a just a KM thing with Creo. My experience with EFI Fiery has been nothing but good, our colors are excellent and repeatable.

I would never be forced into making a quick decision on a major purchase like that, it sounds like someone had that machine installed and hated it and now you are going to get stuck. I would DEMAND to find out where it was installed and why they no longer have it. Get a lawyer involved if you need to, don't sign off on the lease until you are satisfied with the prints from it, and then see if the leasing company will give you a 30 day extension to make sure it is working correctly.

Sorry about your misfortunes as well, hopefully things will get better for you, keep it positive!

 

[dondahl]

Craig, i have a financing clause in the agreement, and i am getting bank loan to pay
for it, so i can still bail. I think maybe it is the suport at KM that may be bad, the only response, i get from the tec guy is to lighten the color to 75% they are mostly a xerox
co so maybe they don't know how to make it work properly and just want it sold
well got to go golf wish i lived in AZ today, its cold and cloudy in E. washington
Don

 

[dondahl]

QBS redmond

QBS redmond

Well i called my sales guy 1st thing mon. i told him I wanted to get the color issues
figured out today. i also called the tech support and told them i wanted to fix the color
issues that day (mon) i put my staff full time on this project to figure it out, i am making a
real effort here. at 3:00 with no word from my dealer and no luck working out the color
issues on our own i e-mailed the sales manager and told him to pick up the machine.
no response so far.. today is weds, so i sent another e-mail and sent in 2 faxed letters.
Then today i also discovered they were charging me double clicks for 11x17 WTF we ran
a ton of copies this month at cheap entry rates now it looks like i will lose money on the clicks
as well. I don't know how this will end up but it will probably end up in court. Oh Crap!!
So don't use quality business systems in redmond wa.
Don
Bellevue wa

 

[random]

Well, hate to say it but there website says it all http://www.qbsi.com/. No matter what happens do not take this machine. Unless you can get someone else that is 'interested' to service it.

 

[Craig]

I would get ride if it ASAP, call the leasing company and explain to them your situation and that you no longer intend to keep this machine. They may have more pull with the distributor since they more than likely hold leases for other machines of QBS.

Then when the 6500 is gone do yourself a favor and call a Xerox Production Solution Executive to discuss their options, as well as Kodak, and Canon. I don't think you would be comfortable with a KM product after what you have gone through, even if it was serviced by a reputable company, I know I wouldn't.

 

[dondahl]

km 6500

km 6500

Random.
Thanks for the reply, yea i can't take this machine, this is a very strange situation
I have found myself in. I can't believe I let them talk me into a buying descion in just
a couple of hours, man am I stupid. It was a great price on a good machine, just really
bad customer service and tech support.
It should be an intresting day and an interesting story when it is over
Don

 

[dondahl]

km 6500

km 6500

Craig.
The strangest thing is I have a financing contingency on this machine, I am getting
my own financing, so I haven't paid them any money..
You think they would at least tried to make me happy till they got paid.
Don.
I am going to re-hook my Doc 12 and 470 today and unplug the 6500 so I don't use it anymore these double click charges are going to kill me.
Don

 

[random]

I would avoid xerox as well as they seem to be the ones that have stitched you up to start with.

 

[Craig]

I would avoid xerox as well as they seem to be the ones that have stitched you up to start with.

Wrong, not Xerox, but a middleman dealership! That is as wrong as saying Konica Minolta "stitched" them. (all tho it is a KM box) If you take the time to look at their site they are a Xerox, Konica Minolta, HP, Kyocera and ESP dealer.

 

[dondahl]

km 6500

km 6500

I just e-mailed the president maybe that will get something going..

 

[random]

Yes but the most blatant phrase is "A xerox company"

 

[Craig]

I agree, but you and I know they are using that phrase because Xerox is the most recognized name, so it gives them some "credibility", which is obviously not the case.

Let me ask you a serious question Random. Does KM bypass the dealer, and sell direct to the customer? I know that is how it works with Xerox on the large production machines. I don't deal with a dealer for anything, my salesman is a Xerox employee, my field engineers are Xerox employees. Maybe this approach with the 6500's would cut through some of the crap that Don is going through with service.

 

[lfelton]

Random may have a wider perspective, but as someone who has recently bought a 6501, I can tell you that KM prefer to deal direct with commercial printers, at least in the UK. KM approached us directly and made it very clear that KM views commercial printing as a seperate business area and are building a dedicated organisation to address commercial printers directly. We were strongly steered by KM against purchasing through a reseller.

The main difference is that we are serviced by KM engineers, whereas if you purchase through a reseller you are serviced by KM trained engineers. Service has been pretty good so far, but the time to get an engineer on site has not been great. We are told that KM are actively hiring an engineer to be based permanently in our city (there are several printers with 6500/6501), so that should improve.

Xerox are different, again at least in the UK. 18 months or so when we bought our first Xerox, they were very keen to deal directly. I'm pretty indifferent on direct or through a dealer, as long as the support is right, but Xerox were pretty firm that they wanted to deal direct. When we needed an additional machine recently, Xerox steered us firmly in the direction of a reseller for the actual purchase, but with service and account management still through Xerox. We were only looking at a 7000AP or 8000AP, so it may be different for iGen.

My 2c worth: I'd always worry if a machine wasn't going to be serviced by the manufacturer, it's not just the trained field engineers you need, it's also colour management specialists who understand commercial print. BTW, KM in the UK are *much* better than Xerox at this and have been helpful in teaching us to profile papers accurately and match (digital) press output to (real) press colour gamut. Xerox's attitude has always been: "it's colour isn't it, what else do you want?"