I have been running a Pro c9110 since May and It has been quite an experience.
First of all it has been bought to replace our c901 which is close to 5 years old, which we will be keeping until we are fully satisfied with the new machine. It is faster, 135 A4 clicks/min it can handle 400gsm stocks and the image quality is superior with one or two caveats.
The machine is still regarded as a late beta / pre-release, parts are being revised and we have had several firmware updates, with more to come
So I shall start from the beginning.
Within a week of it turning up I had two problems in different areas. The paper transfer roller has been replaced with a belt which allows a far better image on textured stock but also the machine prints to it in between sheets to measure toner density these patches were not being cleaned off so I was getting faint blocks of colour on the non-image side. This unit was re-built twice before the engineer decided to replace it, this was a known issue several other machines were having the same problem which was cured by replacing it. The engineer said several of the part numbers had charged so he presumes the unit has been revised. At the same time the lower paper cooling belt was falling off on a regular basis, and by regular I mean I had an engineer in all day with me putting it back on so I could do some work. Print, fix, print, fix, Print, fix, all day. After two new belts and it being down for five days out of ten the Ricoh Advocate who was trying to sort it out insisted on a whole new paper cooling unit being fitted. Seeing as there were none in the country it had to be taken out of the demonstration machine in Telford and driving it down to us to be fitted, since it has I have had no more issues with it.
Then the main board that controlled the finisher failed, machine down for two more days until it was replaced.
After around 130K started to get colour registration issues. On the underside of the ITB are thousands of tiny dots that a sensor, roughly under the black PCU, uses to measure position and speed, but this sensor gets covered in toner and thus ceases to function properly. This is also a known issue as most of the early machines suffered from it. The engineer, there was only one trained engineer in our area at the time we now have two, showed me how to pull out the ITB unit and carefully clean the sensor, depending on work load this was done at least once sometimes twice a day. In mid July we had two guys from Ricoh Japan come over, one had designed the imaging system and his boss had lead the team that designed the c901. They stripped the ITB unit down replace several items including sensor and the system that was supposed to keep it clean. Also they updated the firmware. Since that time the issue has not re-occurred.
In and around these there have been minor niggles, you might get a series of SC errors one day then never get them again, and ever time you mention this you get the " This is a known issue and it is being looked in to" reply. The banner unit that is fitted is not deigned for it but the c7110, so when the Japanese were asked why there are skew issues with it they replied that they did not think that it would be fitted to this machine. This is down to Ricoh UK being a little to enthusiastic to promote it. The paper LCT's come off the c7110 the banner tray fits to this so it must work on the c9110.
Out of the box image quality is very good except for large areas of solid black. This is, yes you've guessed it, a known issue that Ricoh Japan is working on. So until a solution was forthcoming I had to run several jobs on the c901. One of the Ricoh Experts through my engineer gave me some settings to create a custom paper for this specific job, still not as good as the c901 but good enough. This is something that I have had to do quite often as the paper library is poor and rather generic. On Thursday 27-08-15 I was have problems with Novatech Matt 200gsm, its a paper I have used before but there was a large area of very light grey that was showing marks that were coming and going. The engineer thought that is was paper transfer bias issue and would escalate the problem. I spent around an hour and a half Friday tweaking the various paper transfer bias settings until my boss was happy. Expect to get you hands dirty in the advance paper settings.
My machine has just passed 1 million clicks and has entered the PM phase for certain parts. We have a TCRU parts kit on site and I have had to replace the ITB lube station and the ITB cleaner. Both of these are combined on the c901, but separate on this one. After replacing the lube station I could not find the reset in the advanced maintenance menu, I was told it should be in menu 507, it does not exist I had to go into SP mode to reset it. Like the 7110 the lube bar system has sensors on them so when they run out the machine stops and you have to replace and reset.
We also have the banner print option. This converts one of your LCT trays, tray 3 in our case, to run 320x up to 700mm D/S. It works quite well but because of the way several guide wheels don't lift when the paper is being pulled across to register it, it skews, so it is a good idea to switch off skew detection on that tray and allow the paper to run true. Also do not switch on paper setting 117 Deactivate Image Position, as I was advised, as the backing up goes a bit weird. Take care in loading your stock and you should be okay. The 320 width is fixed by the way.
By default it has a system that is supposed to compensate for the shrinkage and distortion you get when you print the first side and so position the second in the right place, it uses various sensors to measure the sheet as it goes through. Only problem is it takes eight sheets to start working and it is a bit flakey. Switched it off on all trays.
There is probably a lot I have missed out, I had to keep a log of issues at work for the boss, but one thing is true some machines have been far worse than ours.
But once Ricoh sort out all the hardware revisions and firmware issues it will be a very serious bit of kit.
The full colour quality is excellent, the problem is the solid black. Its not bad but when you print large areas on light stock it looks a bit wishy-washy, one of our account handlers said it looked a bit like a litho black, but they are working on it. And there is a work around.
The lack of a sorted paper library is also a problem especially if you print on lots of different stocks, I have 40 or so I use regular you don't want to have to mess around in the advanced paper settings everyday as there are over 140, although once sorted, you can back up you custom paper settings to a SD card just in case, as I've done.
I have been lucky most of my engineers are ex Ikon and are extremely helpful and are on the end of a mobile either for text or talk support. And since Ricoh Japan came in to fit some new bits, I have had a more productive less stressed time.
Its a good machine.
Hopefully it will get better.
