Looking at buying used Konica C8000

pacart

Well-known member
We have been running a Konica C6501 since 2009 and have started looking at upgrading. We really like the new Konica C1085, but it is out of our price range. So we've been offered a used Konica C8000 instead. I've uploaded the setup we are looking at getting, we might be missing a stacker on the end, I'm not sure if it is required with what we want. Anyways, if anyone has anything good or bad to say, please do.
 

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I'd be careful - it depends on what volumes you put through. We have 4 C8000's here (and a further 6 at another site) and I'm not a fan of their [lack of] reliability. The quality is nice, but the colours don't hold for a decent run and be prepared to have a tech around a fair bit. I'm very much a fan of the Ricohs. At my previous job we had a 901 and a 751 (also a KM C8000 and C6501) and the Ricohs left the Konicas in the dust in terms of speed and reliability. The Ricohs did about 75% of the colour work for that reason alone. The colours weren't as punchy though, depends on what you are after.

Make sure your local tech knows his/her stuff and is experienced in servicing the c8000s.

All of that being said, the C8000 is a huge step of from a 6501 in terms of quality.

If you can stretch it, look at the KM 1100 - we had one installed recently and so far it seems considerably better than the 8000s.
 
We'd be on contract with the same company that we've had for our 6501 and they are very good. With our volume we can't justify the 1100, but a used c8000 is in our price range. We are mostly interested in the ability to do thicker than 300gsm paper, the better feed system than the 6501, less static and the booklet maker on the end.
 
It all comes down to your tech. If they are knowledgeable and really care you will be fine. If your under contract anything needed will be replaced. All these type of machines will have issues. But if you use good paper and have a good tech well worth it. Have had ours for almost two years. Have had issues but worked through them.
 
I'd be careful - it depends on what volumes you put through. We have 4 C8000's here (and a further 6 at another site) and I'm not a fan of their [lack of] reliability. The quality is nice, but the colours don't hold for a decent run and be prepared to have a tech around a fair bit. I'm very much a fan of the Ricohs. At my previous job we had a 901 and a 751 (also a KM C8000 and C6501) and the Ricohs left the Konicas in the dust in terms of speed and reliability. The Ricohs did about 75% of the colour work for that reason alone. The colours weren't as punchy though, depends on what you are after.

Make sure your local tech knows his/her stuff and is experienced in servicing the c8000s.

All of that being said, the C8000 is a huge step of from a 6501 in terms of quality.

If you can stretch it, look at the KM 1100 - we had one installed recently and so far it seems considerably better than the 8000s.

The 6501 was our step in the door to digital work some 6 years ago, and we have been happy with the product. Of course there are things you need to deal with, would you say that the experience as far as the reliability and colors etc. is similar to the 6501? or is it different? I know that quality is better.
 
We have had our C1085 now for about 8 months and it was out of our price range so we configured it to be in our price range along with the reduced clic charges which were 40% less than the Xerox we had, we were able to purchase a C1085. I'm glad we purchased it because it is very reliable, has great rated speed, easy to use. Why don't you ask for a Demo C1085, they come available very 6 months or so.
 
We have a meeting today to go over 3 options.

1. A cheaper configuration on the C1085
2. A used C8000
3. A Ricoh C7100X with 5th color station


So hopefully we can get a deal we are happy with.
 
Of course there are things you need to deal with, would you say that the experience as far as the reliability and colors etc. is similar to the 6501? or is it different? I know that quality is better.

It's hard to compare as when I started at that print shop the 6500 was old and overdue to be retired, so reliability was always a factor. It got to the point where the techs refused to service it as it was so old and parts were hard to source. From memory the 6500 colour consistency was comparable to the C8000. Any run higher than 1000 SRA3 sheets required regular colour checks and calibration. We calibrated our machines about 8 times a shift (before each run) and that helped.

Maintenance-wise I'd say the 8000 was better but that could be down to age of the machine. The specs were much higher on the 8000 (duplex 300gsm etc) and it was faster too. The colours are much punchier on the C8000 - glossier finish too. On a busy month the machine would go down once a week or fortnight so the techs were around a fair bit.

We had problems laminating high coverage sheets from the C8000, we never got to the bottom of it really. Bubbles appeared in creased, laminated sheets after a week or so. We assumed it was either the laminator roller temperature/pressure or the glossy finish from the printer. When we replaced the laminator the problem seemed to go away so we couldn't isolate the issue. No problems laminating output from the 6500.

I'd recommend the Ricoh 7100 just for the 5th colour unit alone, KM doesn't have anything in the works to compete there yet as far as I know. When I was at that print shop we also had a Ricoh 901 and 751 (similar to the 7100). I quite like the 751 output - not as punchy colours, but way more reliable and had a nice matte finish. I'm not a fan of the gloss.

In my current print shop we have 4x c8000's and on a busy day we have them all running non-stop for about 10 hours at a time. After 2 days we usually lose 2-3 of those machines. It depends on your volumes, but overall in my opinion, C8000's are dogs for production purposes. Even the KM techs agreed with me. C8000s seem to hate me - so I could be biased!
 
Well we crossed the C8000 off of the list, seems they are from an old program Konica was running which was basically "get these damn money pits out of our customers hands", They were buying out contracts to get these machines out of service ( known problem machines) , then they want to turn around and sell em used. So we aren't interested in anyone else headache.

I am going to see the Ricoh C7100 and the KM C1085 run on Friday. The pricing is very favorable for the Ricoh and we like its features, so we'll see.
 
Hello, we are interesting of buying either CANON C8000VP or RICOH C7100 or KM C1100.
I would like to know the weakness of these devices. We are a printing company that has 1.000.000-1.500.000 Α3 passing per year and we would like to buy one of the above machines.
What is the machine that appears less problems? What are the printing coincidences? Are the coincidences exactly at the point and on the other side of paper?
 

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