Ricoh killed my service contract during covid-19 now looking for advice on black and white machines.

[cruisin]

Among everything else I have to worry about at the moment it looks like I will be forced to do something with our black and white digital machines?

I have 5 Ricoh EX150's or known as digi's that we put roughly 1.9m clicks on a month during normal times. Ricoh gave me 30 days on our service contract last week so I don't have much time to figure things out. I have been told by a couple of people we should try to self maintain the machines which might be my only option at this point due to the limited time and current situation. Is anyone doing this or have any experience in doing this?

As far as looking for a new machine with a click charge from what I am seeing about the only option with a good monthly duty cycle is the Oce 6270 but it has the price tag to go along with it. I have been told by the Ricoh service tech that the new 8320's are not built as heavy duty and will not be as reliable as the machines we have, not to mention I would not even consider Ricoh at this point. I am not a fan of the current KM stackers which we rely heavily on so those are out. Not a fan of Xerox as a company due to similar dealings in the past. Is there anyone left that can be recommended?

Thanks in advance for any info!

 

[SoggyWinter]

Thanks for the warning- I can add Ricoh to my list of companies to avoid. Heidelberg's Versafire CM might be worth looking at if their support is better than Ricoh's and pricing works out. The JustAPrinter channel on Youtube has high opinions of his Konica Minolta equipment.

 

[MitchtheMitch]

Thanks for the warning- I can add Ricoh to my list of companies to avoid. Heidelberg's Versafire CM might be worth looking at if their support is better than Ricoh's and pricing works out. The JustAPrinter channel on Youtube has high opinions of his Konica Minolta equipment.

Aren't Versafire printers simply Ricoh machines dressed up with Heidelberg branding?

 

[Schnicklefritz]

Our large black and white jobs go on the Oce Varioprint 6320. We've had it for about 5 years now and we like it's speed, thanks to it's perfecting ability, and low down time. Also not a glutton on consumables. It was purchased through Pacific Office Automation and is under service contract with them. No worries about being dropped.

 

[cruisin]

Thanks for the suggestions yes I think the versafire machines are just re-branded Ricoh's at least they look exactly the same but I suppose the service would be different so that would be a plus. It looks like Pacific Office Automation only services the west coast but someone like them might be the way to go.

 

[gregbatch]

Aren't Versafire printers simply Ricoh machines dressed up with Heidelberg branding?

Yep.

 

[truehue]

We've had good service with our Heidelberg (Ricoh) C901. It's currently about 5+ years old, and prints well. I'm finding it to be more problematic with heavy stocks lately, but it still does offset wonderfully. As far as I know, a Versifire would still be serviced by Ricoh techs within your area. Why are they ending your contract? Are they not offering you an updated click price?

 

[cruisin]

No they did not offer an updated click which is what I usually get from other vendors. I had an Igen at one point that they doubled the click on me at one point and I did not know until I got the next bill which was a BIG surprise. In the cancellation letter they wrote they state the maintenance costs on the machines were getting too high. I do know when a tech comes out they usually spend way more time here that they need to the tech that came out yesterday worked on the machines for a couple of hours and then spent around 3 hours sitting in their car in the parking lot not sure if that is going against out click or if they are just waiting on another call?

 

[jrsc]

The EX150 is an old kodak machine that isn't made anymore, right? I bet they can't get parts anymore.
I have an Oce 6320 you can buy at a very good price. We had bought it from a canon dealer and they decided to stop servicing our account because they got a new hospital account and decided that was more profitable and they didn't have enough techs for them and us. We are still in a legal fight with them but we own the machine outright and it works fine with lots of life left in it. We have replaced it with a xerox nuvera 314 which has been great. It could run your whole 1.9 million a month in one shift no problem. Over 300 pages per minute. Unfortunately for us canon direct doesn't service our area and this dealer was the only choice.

 

[cruisin]

The EX150 is an old kodak machine that isn't made anymore, right? I bet they can't get parts anymore.
I have an Oce 6320 you can buy at a very good price. We had bought it from a canon dealer and they decided to stop servicing our account because they got a new hospital account and decided that was more profitable and they didn't have enough techs for them and us. We are still in a legal fight with them but we own the machine outright and it works fine with lots of life left in it. We have replaced it with a xerox nuvera 314 which has been great. It could run your whole 1.9 million a month in one shift no problem. Over 300 pages per minute. Unfortunately for us canon direct doesn't service our area and this dealer was the only choice.

Your correct it is the old digimaster. Sounds like your in a similar situation as us with your oce? I might be interested but I would have to see if someone would be willing to pick up service.

 

[jrsc]

Your correct it is the old digimaster. Sounds like your in a similar situation as us with your oce? I might be interested but I would have to see if someone would be willing to pick up service.

If you have Canon in your area you should be able to pick up service. I wish Canon direct was in our area so I could keep the machine. Really was a good machine. We just had problems with the dealer from the start. PM me if you want to talk specs and price. I also have experience with the new ricohs 8000 series as well and xerox nuveras if you need any other help. Both of those are good machines also.

 

[[email protected]]

Among everything else I have to worry about at the moment it looks like I will be forced to do something with our black and white digital machines?

I have 5 Ricoh EX150's or known as digi's that we put roughly 1.9m clicks on a month during normal times. Ricoh gave me 30 days on our service contract last week so I don't have much time to figure things out. I have been told by a couple of people we should try to self maintain the machines which might be my only option at this point due to the limited time and current situation. Is anyone doing this or have any experience in doing this?

As far as looking for a new machine with a click charge from what I am seeing about the only option with a good monthly duty cycle is the Oce 6270 but it has the price tag to go along with it. I have been told by the Ricoh service tech that the new 8320's are not built as heavy duty and will not be as reliable as the machines we have, not to mention I would not even consider Ricoh at this point. I am not a fan of the current KM stackers which we rely heavily on so those are out. Not a fan of Xerox as a company due to similar dealings in the past. Is there anyone left that can be recommended?

Thanks in advance for any info!

I'm assuming you're talking about Ricoh direct vs. a Ricoh dealer? It's not really Ricoh who's to blame though because Kodak recently announced an end to Digimaster support including parts however I am surprised to hear that they're canceling your service agreement so abruptly. Up until Covid-19 we were aggressively targeting existing accounts with a pretty good 8320 upgrade program and despite what you may have heard they are very capable machines except at the higher Digi volumes but then the price is great so you can get two for the price of one Digi. I can also tell you that the pandemic has caused furloughs in a lot of areas and if they were short on Digi-trained techs to begin with then it might be more of a local decision. If you haven't already, ask to speak to service management to see if they can work something out.

 

[Yes U Can]

Change them for Canon's VP6000 TITAN is the best option. I'd think you can handle the volume with 2 or 3 engines easy. The TITAN is robust and has an unmatched MCBF. Real productivity and with the latest developments you're able to keep track remotely on your jobs via cloud service. This is your chance !

 

[donnied]

It's odd that your contract would be "killed" with such short notice, since Kodak announced a couple of years ago that the Digimasters were being discontinued and support would be ending. If your sales reps weren't pounding on your door until last month they aren't doing their jobs very well.

 

[azehnali]

Get yourself the Xerox D125
and if you need help let me know

 

[kev_24]

You can go for Xerox D series printer

 

[SoggyWinter]

The Xerox D-Series was not a good experience for my team. The paper path has fragile plastic fingers that fail somewhat often and clearing paper jams is way more challenging than it should be. Xerox has a B9xxx line to replace it with updated feeding and finishing equipment and a wider range of media support and EA toner. I would recommend doing a price capability and support bakeoff between the Xerox B9xxx, D-series, and Canon Imagepress line at minimum.

 

[mdidonto]

Thanks for the warning- I can add Ricoh to my list of companies to avoid. Heidelberg's Versafire CM might be worth looking at if their support is better than Ricoh's and pricing works out. The JustAPrinter channel on Youtube has high opinions of his Konica Minolta equipment.

I believe the Versafire CM Is the Ricoh Machine with a Heidelberg label on it

 

[donnied]

The big problem people are having with the Digimasters going away is that it is pretty unique in its niche, very high volume, good enough quality, and really cheap. And no real competition. Looking at your numbers of 1.9m clicks/month, that isn't really that high. The Kodak are rated at upto 8m/month each, so if your total volume is under 2m, you could easily put 2 Ricoh 8320's into that volume, which are rated at 1m/month. If you have 5 digi's running 1.9m/month/per machine, then you'd need 10 Ricoh's to hit that volume! (You'd need 15 of the D series Xerox's to do that, and they'd take longer to run).
The Ricoh 8320 has proven to be a very reliable machine, with very high, stable print quality, even at higher volumes.

 

[kev_24]

We have been using Varioprint 6320. It is good