Ricoh C900 Major Issues

[steven574]

Alright. Here I go again. This time with good news. We will have a new machine before the end of the week. The machine has about 4000 clicks on it.

I talked to my salesman about why it took so long for a machine to become available. He said it was because we have the scanner on ours. I guess they don't have many of those in our area. It sounds reasonable, I guess.

As far as our current machine, that is.... complicated. Our machine was down for around 6 weeks. It currently works, sort of. We are having some minor quality issues. I think we can get by that for the next day or two.

We actually had to go to the showroom twice in 2 weeks. That would be fine if it weren't 45 minutes away. I was actually there yesterday until 6 pm getting some of our jobs done. I most certainly appreciate the fact that they accommodated our needs. It helped very much. Our salesman stayed in the office until I was done.

All in all, Ikon gave us what we wanted. It took 6 weeks of being down to get it, and about 20000 clicks on their office machine, but we got it. I hope this works out. I'm away next week, and can only hope that nothing goes wrong while I'm away.

 

[NLprintguy]

lines

lines

Can't really say what I think the lines would be without seeing them but I have experienced several types of lines in the 6 months that I've been running the c900. Some were just simple fixes, like toner on the dust proof glass. Wipe the glass and the line would be gone. You can also look for any type of fuzz buildup under the drum and on the rails that the drum extends out on. This causes a line that comes and leaves sometimes.
I just operate the machine but have learned a lot from the techs in our area.

 

[NLprintguy]

I am curious how did they get the machine to stop jamming. I am experiencing the same issue, with a lot of multi-feeding (usually 2-3 sheets) of 100 lb cover coated stock. Sometimes this happens a lot of the day.

 

[rcm355]

I have a 900 and it is my second machine. The first one was down for 45 days with a bad board. I run 12.5 x 18.5 100lb Endurance silk cover. The setting I use is Thick 2 Special 3. We clean the rollers in the drawers several times during the day and if we do not it will pull multiple sheets and even when we do it still is prone. I am pretty sure we also run it with double detection "off". I was going to replace another of my CPP650 with another 900, but it is just not quite the complete package I thought it was going to be. Ikon Service has been great and overall the 900 has been too, but duplexing 100lb cover is out of spec for the machine and it is just something I am going to live with for a bit. With everything else it is great.

 

[msaeger]

Do you know if the techs have changed the air separation settings to try and fix the multifeeding ?

 

[steven574]

Sorry everyone. I was on vacation last week and haven't been keeping up with my thread.

The Friday before I left, the new machine was installed and working. I have yet to hear anything from the shop since then. I will let you know what has been going on as soon as I can.

There were multiple communication failures between Ikon and the shop I work for. Ikon told us that the machine would be at our shop my noon on Thursday and that it would have about 2000 to 4000 clicks on it. We received the machine at approximately 4:15 pm on Thursday. It came with 100000 clicks on it. I'm not so upset about the number of clicks. The machine is slated to go for millions. I'm upset about the fact that it took until late Thursday to get it.

Anyhow, they never really fixed the multi-feed. It still happened. We would run the first side of a job that required #100 coated cover and it would run ok. A few doubles here and there, but not terrible. The second side would be worse. We had the feed tires replaced and adjusted the fans, but that didn't seem to work. I'll have to let you know if it happens on the new machine.

Thanks again and good luck with your machines.

Steve
Southbury Printing Centre

 

[steven574]

Alright. I've got good news. The replacement machine has been working fine since they put it in. We haven't seen any major issues. We have run about 40,000 clicks on it, and we couldn't be happier right now.

Thank you to everyone for the help and support.

Steve
Southbury Printing Centre

 

[davidjbeatty]

Hey NLprintguy,
We use Futura stocks on our C900 and I have found out that for whatever reason, the #100 gives us a fit with double sheeting.
Found out by accident that if we take our 25x19 house #100 gloss cover from our pressroom and cut it to 12x18, the feeding issue stops.
Also, we have found that 13x19 just is not a good idea on this machine - even though it is supposed to run it.
David

 

[msaeger]

Alright. I've got good news. The replacement machine has been working fine since they put it in. We haven't seen any major issues. We have run about 40,000 clicks on it, and we couldn't be happier right now.

Thank you to everyone for the help and support.

Steve
Southbury Printing Centre

Hope you don't have any trouble for a while ! Thanks for the follow up.

 

[msaeger]

Hey NLprintguy,
We use Futura stocks on our C900 and I have found out that for whatever reason, the #100 gives us a fit with double sheeting.
Found out by accident that if we take our 25x19 house #100 gloss cover from our pressroom and cut it to 12x18, the feeding issue stops.
Also, we have found that 13x19 just is not a good idea on this machine - even though it is supposed to run it.
David

What happens when you do 13x19 ? I have not been getting calls for jamming and multifeeding so it's surprising to hear about people having issues with this.

 

[davidjbeatty]

13x19

13x19

Hi,
While we were running 13x19, we would get a line down the gear side of the sheet that would fluctuate in size and position, but not always on every sheet. Soon after running 13x19, we would end up having some type of functional problem resulting in a service call.
It has been so long since we have run 13x19, I cannot remember the error codes.
I just told everyone no to 13x19. We do not have that problem with 12.5x19, so I assume that the problem lies within 13"

 

[Skittizay]

haha,

this is so coincidental. we are having the same problems with our Ricoh C900. we just got it a couple of months ago...non stop service calls.

 

[davidjbeatty]

Ours is a Ricoh also.
I have nothing to say but good things about our service techs. They are doing everything possible to get these issues solved.
Do any of you have a problem getting the printing to center on colored cover stock?

 

[bsimagepress]

is it spec'd to run coated cover through the trays you have selected. I would go with the flatest paper path....

 

[digiprint305]

c900 not production machine

c900 not production machine

we went with a c900 running more than 150k impressions a month mainly coated stock both text and cover all within spec digital ream wrapped sheets. The machine could not keep up with the demands nor could the service dept up with the constant maintenance! we replaced fuser after fuser fixed numerous problems with updating the firmware until finally the service department quit. with over 20 service calls per month as well as the machine making its own service calls for repeated interruptions while printing.....this is not a production machine!! If you are a commercial print shop looking to do volume on this box be prepared to see your service tech...A lot! now looking at xerox and konica

 

[ColorProdSpecialist]

digiprint305,

Are you looking at the Xerox product through Xerox direct or another channel? We are a nationwide company that is a wholy-owned subsidiary of Xerox.

Email me back and let me know how far along in the process you are.

Thanks!

 

[Gregster1234]

Ricoh C900 Jamming and multi feed issues - fixes that worked

Ricoh C900 Jamming and multi feed issues - fixes that worked

Hi everyone who has a Ricoh C900 and is having these issues I can tell you that we are on our second machine and we still have had the same problems. After 6 more months of non-stop service calls to Ikon and parts replaced-which they always went after the same things such as the feed rollers! Also this is always on Futura or any other high quality coated cover in 80# and 100#, we run Futura now which after also numerous changes in stock due to them blaming the stocks we run. We found out through testing that if we ran a ream or less it would run fine, I know this is not acceptable but led us to believe that it was something other than the feed rollers. It turns out that it was the elevator motors that raises up the trays in the LCT drawers and that they are the weak link and was not lifting them up precisely as needed, they are a 12 volt DC gear motor and not a step motor which would be a much better choice in this application. After they said it cannot be this out IT dept. manager said he thinks that is what it is and the brought someone from Indiana in and he also said that it makes sense so the replaced one of the drawer lift motors and it worked! So they ordered the other motor and replaced it also and we have not had service call in 2 months! We also are only able to run 80# coated cover and 100# coated cover with all these settings disabled-skew detect sensor, double-feed sensor & side to side registration sensors disabled. This does not affect the job in any way just to let you know if you are worried. Ask your tech to show you where these settings are, they will be in the User tools on the Fiery panel and you will set the LCT1-U or LCT1-L depending which drawer you are using Tray 3 upper or 4 lower. The settings will be a "1" for no detection on all the above mentioned sensors. Make sure to set them back to detection for all other stocks.
Hope this helps all you guys,

Greg Faulkner
Prep Dept.

Mulligan Printing
1808 Washington
St. Louis, MO 63103

 

[JeffAker]

C900 issues

C900 issues

Sounds like what we are going through now with ours.

The techs have traced down the problem to the developer units. New developer units have to be installed but they are on backorder and its been 2 weeks now. The Cyan developer is creating "chunks" of ink which turn into print hickeys/fireflies (which ever you want to call them) on the printed pieces. Another 900 owner in town is having the same problem with his magenta unit.

It all stems from a design flaw in the units. Ricoh is aware of the problem but cant get enough new units quick enough..

besides the usual banding issues the machine has been ok until this problem..

 

[msaeger]

Sounds like what we are going through now with ours.

The techs have traced down the problem to the developer units. New developer units have to be installed but they are on backorder and its been 2 weeks now. The Cyan developer is creating "chunks" of ink which turn into print hickeys/fireflies (which ever you want to call them) on the printed pieces. Another 900 owner in town is having the same problem with his magenta unit.

It all stems from a design flaw in the units. Ricoh is aware of the problem but cant get enough new units quick enough..

besides the usual banding issues the machine has been ok until this problem..

What are your copy counts ?

 

[JeffAker]

Counts. Ricoh 900

Counts. Ricoh 900

We are at 350k clicks.