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

[warlegs]

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

Yep. It's a Ricoh with a Heidelberg sticker on it lol

 

[discountprinting]

My question is do the sales reps only make commission on the sale/lease of a new machine or do they also make commission on the click charges of a service agreement? Seems like if I wasn't interested in upgrading to the newest machine the sale rep would want to keep the service alive so he/she could get that commission?

 

[jwheeler]

My question is do the sales reps only make commission on the sale/lease of a new machine or do they also make commission on the click charges of a service agreement? Seems like if I wasn't interested in upgrading to the newest machine the sale rep would want to keep the service alive so he/she could get that commission?

I used to sell production gear for KM direct (not a dealer). It could be different for other brands, or even specific dealerships, but we did not get paid any sort of commission on the service contracts, only the sale/lease of the machine. As for keeping the service contract alive, that wasn't up to the sales reps. Service managers were instructed to end service contracts by their higher-ups either based on the machine being end of life and parts were no longer available or if the customer wasn't making payments. It was quite rare as most customers did not keep a machine past end of life. It was usually only accounts that had 10-12 year old machines and it just wasn't profitable to keep making parts for the very few that were left in the field. The service managers would offer to keep servicing them, but on a time & materials contract. Meaning, no click charge, they just pay for their own supplies now, along with labor and parts (if available) as we went along.

 

[ReproElectroProspero]

The Nuvera 144 3rd Gen handles that duty cycle just fine in our experience. We average 1,000,000 a month but often go over. I think Xerox states you can do 4,000,000 a month.

We rarely have production issues on the machine, though when we do, we're glad to have a service contract and not be responsible for it. Most recently we had a fatal error that we couldn't figure out. Turns out there's some sort of CMOS type battery in the printer's motherboard that is proprietary and only made for Xerox. We would have been screwed.

Other than that, the machine is nice and reliable, sips toner slowly, and rarely jams or lets us down. Cost is up there though. For us, the reliability was worth it.

 

[Sertech]

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.

That's crap that they would drop you. I service those machines and love them. That ricoh is the old digimaster. Not really ricoh's fault, I used to work on those as well. Even the little Oce VP110-140 would outperform it.

 

[Sertech]

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!

5 of them and they dumped you??? That's crazy. You might still be able to get a rebuilt 6250 from canon. I honestly don't know if they still rebuild them. The price was lower than new.

 

[Sertech]

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!

Now that I think of it, the little oce VP 115/130140 is very reliable. You do have to be picky with paper though.

 

[lsamaroo]

That's crap that they would drop you. I service those machines and love them. That ricoh is the old digimaster. Not really ricoh's fault, I used to work on those as well. Even the little Oce VP110-140 would outperform it.

Does anyone know where i can get parts for my didgimaster. i know how to service it

 

[Sertech]

Does anyone know where i can get parts for my didgimaster. i know how to service it

Your best bet would probably be to buy a used one and strip it. Canon doesn't support it anymore, if ricoh isn't and kodak doesn't, that would mean parts are done

 

[Jpyatt]

Does anyone know where i can get parts for my didgimaster. i know how to service it

I know its been a while, I can probably help if you are still looking.