So much downtime with our KM 14000 we are thinking about replacing with a lesser model. The C6100 is no longer available. Is the C7100 okay?

[Make_It_So]

The C14000 has been a nightmare. I have never seen so many service calls and downtime in my many years in the industry. We are mulling replacing it with a "lesser" KM machine. We also have a C6100 and it is a production beast. The vast majority of the downtime for this printer is associated with the Watkiss booklet maker (it's junk).

How does the C7100 compare to the C6100 in reliability? Thanks for any opinions.

One more thing. The techs were here the last two days "upgrading" the C14000 and said many of the issues causing the down-time should occur much less often. We will see about that.

 

[markdyck]

I'm very interested to hear how this works out... We're actually just starting talks with our local KM rep to potentially replace our Kodak NexPress with a C14000. I don't have reliability problems with my NexPress, I just was hit with a massive increase to my contract rate that forces me to reconsider keeping it or not. Would love to know how your situation works out and what the issues you face.

 

[The Copy Guys]

The C12000/C14000 is the first generation of that particular engine. There will be plenty of bugs to work out. There has already been a gaggle of firmware updates to address issues. Each update seems to improve function and reliability. Hopefully it works out and doesn't become another case like the C8000 was (which ironically is the first generation of the same engine that the C6100 is based on).

 

[criccidisk]

Our shop has a c14000 and a c7100. Both were installed late last year to replace our c6100 and c4080.

I think KM techs even at a higher-up level have had a heck of a time adjusting to these machines. Both of our engines were riddled with bugs and it got to the point where we ultimately had to have KM replace our c14000 with a newer model. Given that our newer unit is night-and-day BETTER than our previous unit, I would honestly keep escalating your case until they resolve whatever fundamental issues your unit is having. In our situation, it was constant banding, hazy and inconsistent solids, consistent fuser faults, a random image stutter that made smooth sheets look like they had a laid texture, prematurely wearing parts, and an awesome dark line that refused to leave the center of the sheet parallel to the paper path. It took five months, but it was worth it.

My reasoning for continuing your escalation is that the c7100 is not a true successor to the c6100, at least in practice. It very much looks and acts like our previous c4080 and still has some jarring bugs that our techs are working out--namely insanely out-of-whack density balance issues and a random post-rip color shift that dramatically changes the color of a project over the first 20 sheets of a production run. It is a good machine in my mind for chugging along on lengthy, non-color-critical runs such as workbooks, flyers, or basic envelopes. To this day I would not trust it for our color-critical customers and it can do absolutely goofy stuff to certain types of media that the c14000 runs completely fine.

Our shop also had those retrofit parts you described installed on our previous c14000. To my knowledge they did not resolve much of anything past the first few days. I'm sure they have improved the quality of some machines, but in my mind they were some plastic parts that delayed the inevitable.

Again, our new c14000 is running ridiculously well as of this writing. Keep documenting your case, run test sheets and datestamp them, and keep a running service log of your downtime independent of your service team. KM doesn't make maintenance money unless you make money, and there will come a tipping point where it is more economical to send in a new unit instead of hammering away at the old one.