Ricoh C9200+C7200 v Xerox Iridesse

[Digital Anthony]

The proof is in the pudding. Do serious research. Visit a few customers that have had the machines for a while. Ask about SLAs to existing customers. Ask to run thousands of sheets to stress test the machine. Bring hard jobs. To me quality of service and total uptime will far outweight bells and whistles like white or pink etc. I've seen the Iridesse and the 7200's output and they are both very matte. For serious production I'd trust the Iridesse simply because you can visit many existing customers and its built mostly on proven technology. Do serious research, share and good luck!

Your Spot on Shaare! i have been apart of digital printing for 20 years now, and find some special colours are not worth it. Except for Clear, Gold and silver i don't see anything else making enough money to worry about. Don't get conned by fancy stuff.
What i look for is a solid machine, a proven track record, Sharp Higher resolution ( which is the one thing i find clients ask for ), the number one, is consistent colour from start to finish ( I have only found one company that is good at this, with no fuss), service that is near-by and treat the service people with respect. You might be under the pump, frustrated, angry, but a service tech is there to help, keep them onside. Dont go for the cheapest opinion ! it will cost you in the long run. If a sales rep says " The price is so good, you could get two for the price of one of the competitors ....... Run !!!!!

 

[kdw75]

Your Spot on Shaare! i have been apart of digital printing for 20 years now, and find some special colours are not worth it. Except for Clear, Gold and silver i don't see anything else making enough money to worry about. Don't get conned by fancy stuff.
What i look for is a solid machine, a proven track record, Sharp Higher resolution ( which is the one thing i find clients ask for ), the number one, is consistent colour from start to finish ( I have only found one company that is good at this, with no fuss), service that is near-by and treat the service people with respect. You might be under the pump, frustrated, angry, but a service tech is there to help, keep them onside. Dont go for the cheapest opinion ! it will cost you in the long run. If a sales rep says " The price is so good, you could get two for the price of one of the competitors ....... Run !!!!!

We have been a Xerox shop but we are moving from Versant to Ricoh’s 7210s. Quality and service where are primary concerns. We needed the 5th color and the Iridesse was out of our price range. The smooth screens of the Ricoh are Better than our Versant 2100 could ever do.

 

[jkl67]

Yeah, but isn't the output from Ricoh presses extremely glossy?

What I've noticed with existing customer site tests and from tests run at Ricoh's Boulder test facility is that our work seems flatter / more matte....which is actually fine with us. Even on gloss stocks. Our experience with iGen's are the result of the fuser oil glossy look.

 

[Digital Insight]

What price are folks seeing on a 9200?

I need Fiery 315 with 6 paper trays and a 3 knife trim.

$140k sound about right?

thx

 

[Craig]

All that being said, make sure you understand the issues with front to back registration on the Ricoh vs the ColorPress. If adjusting registration is anything like our Ricoh 8120 it is a huge PIA. The 1000i is a few simple mouse clicks and 10 sheets of paper and it is dead on 99% of the time. Also, open the machines up and compare the build of each. Our 8120 is supposed to be based on the 7000 series (according to the sales monkey) and it would never stand up to the punishment of our 1000i.

 

[Kunnajar]

All that being said, make sure you understand the issues with front to back registration on the Ricoh vs the ColorPress. If adjusting registration is anything like our Ricoh 8120 it is a huge PIA. The 1000i is a few simple mouse clicks and 10 sheets of paper and it is dead on 99% of the time. Also, open the machines up and compare the build of each. Our 8120 is supposed to be based on the 7000 series (according to the sales monkey) and it would never stand up to the punishment of our 1000i.

Ricoh 7200e-series, 7200x and 9200-series all have automated registration and calibration, they also have real time front to back registration control which works while running a job.

 

[cDirect]

Ricoh 7200e-series, 7200x and 9200-series all have automated registration and calibration, they also have real time front to back registration control which works while running a job.

I hear from the techs that this "automated registration" is still causing major issues with the 9200s. Basically they slapped a small form factor Linux or Unix box inside the machine to do this and it craps out here and there.

 

[cDirect]

My 2 cents is that service is always important. If you go Ricoh make sure you get the full TCRU training because this can save you not having to wait for the tech to show up if you need a, for example, PCU cleaning unit replaced. Making sure your parts get reconditioned is also an important part of the service to maintain minimal downtime.

 

[Digital Anthony]

Somethings to watch out for !
We have also been offered the 9200 and 7200 instead of the Iridesse. I spent a whole day looking at the Ricoh machines. Good prints came off both, 9200 will print 470 gsm but there was a lot of noise going through the 9200.
They claimed it takes a couple of minutes to change the 5th colours, i asked them to demonstrate. It took 40 mins to do. Also need a bicycle pump to clean out the internal hoses inbetween colours so there is no cross contamination.
They only have a auto back to front registration, even then you need to tweak everytime. No auto color calibration, no auto color uniformity. It seems to me for the Ricoh machines you have to press or do three things to pressing one button for the iridesse.
Ricoh have developed their own RIP. The demonstrator wouldn't use it because it is full of bugs. They used a Fiery RIP, the lowest configured RIP. Remember that if you order the Ricoh, the fully configured Fiery is a lot dearer.
The big thing for me was, any banner printing over 700 mm long on both ricoh machines, you need to buy a option worth about $60,000 USD to make this happen! They can not discount this option because its made by a third party. With a Iridesse, it is a really cheap catch tray.
Yes 2 Ricoh machines might be cheaper than one Iridesse, but when i look at set up times, ease of use, 6 colors instead of 5, and a lot easier swap of colors than the Ricoh, i know what i would like.
PS Adding that option for 1.2 banner printing on the Ricohs , and fully configured Fiery, gets a price almost up to a Iridesse.

 

[msaeger]

Somethings to watch out for !
We have also been offered the 9200 and 7200 instead of the Iridesse. I spent a whole day looking at the Ricoh machines. Good prints came off both, 9200 will print 470 gsm but there was a lot of noise going through the 9200.
They claimed it takes a couple of minutes to change the 5th colours, i asked them to demonstrate. It took 40 mins to do. Also need a bicycle pump to clean out the internal hoses inbetween colours so there is no cross contamination.
They only have a auto back to front registration, even then you need to tweak everytime. No auto color calibration, no auto color uniformity. It seems to me for the Ricoh machines you have to press or do three things to pressing one button for the iridesse.
Ricoh have developed their own RIP. The demonstrator wouldn't use it because it is full of bugs. They used a Fiery RIP, the lowest configured RIP. Remember that if you order the Ricoh, the fully configured Fiery is a lot dearer.
The big thing for me was, any banner printing over 700 mm long on both ricoh machines, you need to buy a option worth about $60,000 USD to make this happen! They can not discount this option because its made by a third party. With a Iridesse, it is a really cheap catch tray.
Yes 2 Ricoh machines might be cheaper than one Iridesse, but when i look at set up times, ease of use, 6 colors instead of 5, and a lot easier swap of colors than the Ricoh, i know what i would like.
PS Adding that option for 1.2 banner printing on the Ricohs , and fully configured Fiery, gets a price almost up to a Iridesse.

What kinds of jobs do you run on over 700mm? I am just curious. I was having people wanting 27.5 inchs to do tri-fold brochures. You can do longer from the bypass tray but that tray only officially does 80# cover and I don't think you would want to do a ton through there.

On the 9200 you can calibrate on demand with the inline sensor and it also supports auto color correction during a run if you enable it and you can have it print register marks if you have space to do the image position correcting during the job. The 7200 only does registration and calibration with the inline sensor.

 

[Digital Anthony]

What kinds of jobs do you run on over 700mm? I am just curious. I was having people wanting 27.5 inchs to do tri-fold brochures. You can do longer from the bypass tray but that tray only officially does 80# cover and I don't think you would want to do a ton through there.

On the 9200 you can calibrate on demand with the inline sensor and it also supports auto color correction during a run if you enable it and you can have it print register marks if you have space to do the image position correcting during the job. The 7200 only does registration and calibration with the inline sensor.

You can only feed one at a time through bypass tray on 9200 and only to 216 gsm. The Iridesse will do full coverage at 1200mm with 30 sheets at a time, if you want, up to 400gsm, how many jobs at this size? Well already can think of a few in the education space, and taking a lot off our roland wideformat using gold and silver to embellish posters, a local packaging company wants to use it for special packaging using 400 gsm thickness.

The whole idea in the digital printing these days is to offer the high quality standard printing plus MORE to attract customers and keep your regular ones. Using a 1200mm sheet opens lots of different advantages.

Why would Ricoh offer a option to production print a 1200mm sheet unless they Knew customers would want to do it ?

The demonstrator didn't use the online color calibration on the 9200 because he said for both 9200 and 7200 calibration through the RIP with the spectro is more actuate.

The other thing they mention was not to use the HDMI cables to connect between the RIP and machine, because to reboot the machine you then have to wait for the RIP to reboot. But as i remember the HDMI cables give higher Resolution when sending the signal of the rip image to the machines VSEL board. Weird.

WARNING I have been Digital printing since 92, seen almost every type of digital machine and had to try and fix a few myself !

 

[kdw75]

The Iridesse is definitely geared towards more volume than the 7200 series. They compete against the Versant.

With the Ricoh you can run greater than 80# gloss cover up to 27 inches unlike the Versant. Though you can lie to the Versant and get 100# cover to work pretty well.

 

[dagoof]

I've been offered a Ricoh on contract, could anyone tell me what the 'percentage of color coverage' typically is? They're stating 30% which seems way too low when my work is predominantly image heavy!

 

[msaeger]

I've been offered a Ricoh on contract, could anyone tell me what the 'percentage of color coverage' typically is? They're stating 30% which seems way too low when my work is predominantly image heavy!

What is stating a coverage percentage? Is the contract specifing something about coverage?

 

[dagoof]

Yes, contract states monthly volume, SRA3/4 ratios, as well as stating 30% colour coverage.

 

[jwheeler]

Yes, contract states monthly volume, SRA3/4 ratios, as well as stating 30% colour coverage.

dagoof this is interesting. I'd be curious to see the verbiage in the full context. Is the text about ratios and % of coverage on the back of the contract in the paragraphs of small print, or is it listed on the front page near your cost per copy?

I used to sell printing equipment, and the only commitments we did, which was rare, was a minimum volume requirement. And that was only when they wanted to negotiate a very low CPC, we would ask them to commit to at least 100,000 prints which they would be charged for even if they didn't hit that volume. However, in recent years, the idea of volume commitments faded off because shops had such fluctuating volumes and they would just pay for the prints they did. Same for sheet sizes. Long ago, it was common to be charged a 'double click' for 11x17 and larger, but these days its usually just a single click for any size other than banner mode.

Perhaps what you're reading is some generic verbiage they are using to cover themselves in case you seem to be ordering more toner than the average shop based on that volume. It's an unfortunate thing that some people will abuse the freedom to order toner on their service contract and sell it on ebay to people who don't have contracts. While much of your work may have some heavy coverage, you very likely also have work that has text on a white background and this will average out your coverage.

I don't know what you're buying and what your exact situation is that lead them to put this, but I'd ask for a service contract without any volume, sheet size, or coverage commitments. This could/will come back to bite you if you don't do it now. You could very easily get a competitive quote from Canon, Xerox, or Konica Minolta to help push them toward what you want.

 

[Mulzani]

jwheeler Half a year ago, after seeing the Ricoh C7200 in a presentation, a local seller offered us the basic model, in wich the cost per click was higher than in the Versant 80 we already owned, with a very high price on the machine, higher than the cost of the Versant and, in addition, with a minimum of 10.000 clicks and a coverage not exceeding 10%.

Obviously we decline the "offer" and now, we have two Versant 80.

 

[msaeger]

Yes, contract states monthly volume, SRA3/4 ratios, as well as stating 30% colour coverage.

Never heard of that type for sale here are you in the usa? I only see so much per page and it could be one click for any size or one for each letter size. Some have minimums some don't. I remember talk of different rates depending on coverage years ago but nothing became of it here anyway.

 

[dagoof]

Thanks for the replies. It's fairly evident in the middle of the contract (as prominent as any of the other details). I'm in Europe but no-one else I've spoken with had such coverage restraints. Strikes me as a little sneaky...

 

[Mulzani]

dagoof I don't know how Ricoh works in your country, but here in Spain each seller has their own manteinance service, at least in my region, so there could be differences between each one, try to contact another local seller.