Konica Minolta 6501

[bgardner]

Can anyone give me any good/bad feedback on this machine

Looking to do about 40,000 - 50,000 color impressions per month, and a lot of 80 and 100# cover

All feedback is welcome and appreciated about the machine in general

 

[Mark]

We have a KM6500 and it likes to jam 100# uncoated cover.

 

[UberTech]

We have a KM6500 and it likes to jam 100# uncoated cover.

Out of interest, where, which tray, code?

 

[Craig]

Uncoated cover or gloss cover? The 6500/1 in my OPINION will produce nice looking prints on uncoated sheets (some of the slipperiest I have ever worked with) but on a gloss coated sheet the prints look flat and unnatural, the color is fine they just lack that pop.

My OPINION is rendered from performing finishing to sheets provided to me buy a shop in town with a 6500.

 

[bgardner]

Does anyone know the speed of the machine once you enter the 80 or 100# cover world??

65ppm is only the spec for 8.5 x 11 standard weight paper

 

[UberTech]

Does anyone know the speed of the machine once you enter the 80 or 100# cover world??

65ppm is only the spec for 8.5 x 11 standard weight paper

Speed halves.

 

[Craig]

So if it halves that means 8.5x11 is 33ppm, would that mean 11x17 and 12x18 would be 17ppm and duplexing 11x17 and 12x18 would be 9ppm? (yes I rounded up the numbers)

 

[UberTech]

Yep, that sounds about right. Which is the same for all the machines that are in the segment c6500 is targeted at ie X252, X700, and soon to be seen C9075.

 

[Mike Meredith]

mike

mike

we have a 650 and have very good success with it on cover both 80 and 100 - important to get your air set on strong - so far as speed it is about 1/4 the rated speed on 12 x 18 cover - we also have a Ricoh c900 and are very happy - the speed remians consistent on this with heavy stock

 

[UberTech]

How does the c6500 compare to the c900 with regards to print quality.

 

[Heather]

We love it

We love it

My company just got a C6501 in May (we replaced our Canon CLC5000) and so far we love it. We also run a lot of 80# and 100# cover. The 100# uncoated cover (we use Cougar) curls quite a bit - so we have to curl it back before running something on the other side. But it's not a huge problem. One thing that is probably a good thing, but is an annoyance, is that it decides to calibrate or warm up or run some sort of self check process between each order. Sometimes it does this between very small orders, like one or two sheets. There's a lot of waiting on the machine some days. But all in all the quality is great and I haven't had nearly as many problems as I saw with the CLC. We also have a finisher that does folding/stitching which is a nice feature although it slows down the process a bit. Sometimes the machine becomes a bottleneck and it's actually quicker to print booklets/newsletters flat and let my pressman do the bindery work if he has time. But it's excellent to have that option. Also, we have the extra paper deck with two big trays. It is so handy, I couldn't imagine going back to just one and having to set it up for different sizes twice as often. The way it is now we can just have them each set up for a different size and chances are you won't have to change it for every run. One thing we don't have is a bypass tray, so we can't do any weird sizes or envelopes. Overall, I give the 6501 a big thumbs up.

 

[UberTech]

My company just got a C6501 in May (we replaced our Canon CLC5000) and so far we love it. We also run a lot of 80# and 100# cover. The 100# uncoated cover (we use Cougar) curls quite a bit - so we have to curl it back before running something on the other side. But it's not a huge problem.

If you have a relay unit you can set this to curl reform in the other direction, they will come out dead flat

One thing that is probably a good thing, but is an annoyance, is that it decides to calibrate or warm up or run some sort of self check process between each order. Sometimes it does this between very small orders, like one or two sheets. There's a lot of waiting on the machine some days.

Unusual, I would say the tech has cranked up the stability setting to some extreme level thinking it's going to drift like a c500, they don't. Check you POD manual for stability and speed setting. This should rarely happen

But all in all the quality is great and I haven't had nearly as many problems as I saw with the CLC. We also have a finisher that does folding/stitching which is a nice feature although it slows down the process a bit. Sometimes the machine becomes a bottleneck and it's actually quicker to print booklets/newsletters flat and let my pressman do the bindery work if he has time. But it's excellent to have that option. Also, we have the extra paper deck with two big trays. It is so handy, I couldn't imagine going back to just one and having to set it up for different sizes twice as often. The way it is now we can just have them each set up for a different size and chances are you won't have to change it for every run. One thing we don't have is a bypass tray, so we can't do any weird sizes or envelopes. Overall, I give the 6501 a big thumbs up.

Yes you can!! move the paper guides to the narrowest setting then swing the stainless steel guides inwards, voila! 100mm wide.

 

[Mike Meredith]

very similar - reds are better - front to back registration is far superior

 

[Craig]

Yep, that sounds about right. Which is the same for all the machines that are in the segment c6500 is targeted at ie X252, X700, and soon to be seen C9075.

Thanks, just wanted to make sure I wasn't making an incorrect assumption!

 

[pacart]

So we have had our KM6501 for about 3 weeks now. I timed the speed on 12x18 80# cover duplex, it was 12 ppm. So far the color is excellent. We looked at the xerox 700 for quite a while, but when the dollars didn't make sense we went with the konica. I didn't like the konicas output as much as the xerox, but i have to say now that we have spent time with it and ran a few jobs, i am satisfied.

Our machine showed up with a bad board in the large capacity tray and is on order, but the company we have our contract through pulled a board out of another machine as a stop gap solution.

Currently my only problem is in the morning the first few sheets come out with the leading edge wet. I don't know what this is, but i am going to contact support to see if it is bad.

One thing we weren't told was the video option on the external fiery is not standard, so if you want to connect a monitor up to it you have to pay $1000 to get a dongle that turns it on. We didn't fall into their trap, we went out and bought a whole other computer for $499 at walmart and run their software through there.

Also the dehumidify option sometimes takes forever, and when you open the lid or start a new job it has to dehumidify again. Not sure if it really does anything though.

 

[Muddy]

Just for budgetary purposes, how much does a KM 6500 run. Say basic machine without add on modules such as a finisher etc. US $ would be nice.

 

[pacart]

Well you need a finisher, even the cheap one, so that you can stack more paper. I think without a finisher you can only stack 250 or 500 sheets. The cheapest finisher which is just a stapler stacks 3500 sheets.

So how much is a KM6501, well i guess that depends on how much you bitch, moan and complain. It also depends on who ya know. You should ask people who have one in your area to see what they got it for, then you can push your salesman to meet or beat the price.

You should also be shopping more than one manufacturer (xerox and cannon, etc..) and let the sales people know it, this way they will compete for you business, even if you have already decided to go with a specific machine. Don't just give them your business, make them work for it.

I don't think im allowed to say how much i paid, but lets just say i got the external fiery rip for free.

 

[UberTech]

Also the dehumidify option sometimes takes forever, and when you open the lid or start a new job it has to dehumidify again. Not sure if it really does anything though.

Your tech can set the machine to ignore this (but still dehumidify). If you constantly changing paper then this would be a knightmare.

 

[bgardner]

What is the sheet to sheet registration tolerance???

 

[Mark]

Out of interest, where, which tray, code?

where does it jam? everywhere! Trays 5 and 4 (and 3, 2 and 1 if we put it there, but we usually don't)
Not to say that it jams everytime, just that 100 uncoated runs worse that others.