Straight talk about Ricoh Pro c901 registration

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Before I leased this machine, I pinned the local Ricoh sales people down on what to expect with front to back registration on 12pt, 111#, C2S cover stock. They stated I could expect .5mm registration front to back. Luckily, for what it's worth, I have this in writing.

Shortly after the machine was installed, I started to experience some major fluctuations with front to back registration. Registration along the long edge of the non-operator's side of the sheet would drift up to 2mm across a print run of 500 sheets+. No other points of registration on the sheet would drift. Basically, just one area of the printing was stretching/shrinking.

A specialist was flown in to inspect the machine's general settings and they passed. It was at this point that I was told to expect a registration variance of .5mm for every 200mm of sheet size. This equates to 2mm front to back on a 13"x19" sheet. I would have never leased this machine had I known this. Xerox's smaller, light production boxes have more consistent registration than this. I was consistently getting .5mm-1mm front to back from a sweetly tuned x700.

The long edge registration drift mysteriously went away a few months ago, but it was replaced by a uniform with-feed registration drift. Every morning when I start up the machine, I can expect a 2mm registration difference if running a test print of the exact same job using the exact same settings and paper as the previous day. It typically takes about 300 sheets of paper and constant baby sitting to normalize the registration back to centered. It would seem that it could be a heat issue, but the humidity and temperature in my press room is consistently congruent with Ricoh's recommendations.

At this point, Ricoh is refusing to honor a written performance commitment and they will not replace the machine with a like or newer model. They are standing by the machine's 2mm registration tolerance even though I have in writing to expect .5mm. Is anyone else who is running a c901 or c901+ experiencing this type of registration behavior? Your input is greatly appreciated.
 
Is your written "guaranteed" .5mm state on a 13x19 sheet? If not when these "Digital Presses" (I just about puked when I typed that) are spec'd out ALL numbers are based lined on 8-1/2 x 11 105gsm sheets NOT 12 x 18 or 13 x 19 and certainly NOT 300gsm. Good rule of thumb is to divide everything by 1/2 if it is monthly duty or consumable items and multiply by 2 for registration to get "real" numbers.
 
Is your written "guaranteed" .5mm state on a 13x19 sheet? If not when these "Digital Presses" (I just about puked when I typed that) are spec'd out ALL numbers are based lined on 8-1/2 x 11 105gsm sheets NOT 12 x 18 or 13 x 19 and certainly NOT 300gsm. Good rule of thumb is to divide everything by 1/2 if it is monthly duty or consumable items and multiply by 2 for registration to get "real" numbers.

A 13"x19", 111# cover stock sheet, indeed! I made sure that I was more than clear in all written and verbal conversations what my typical stock would be as well as typical toner coverage on the sheet and expected clicks per month. This isn't my first digital machine, so I know the deal.

I'm still hoping some 901 and 901+ owners and operators will come forward to express their experiences with the machine's registration. I would like to know if I have a lemon or if this is what people should expect from this particular machine.
 
hey

hey

I am not a Ricoh guy, but with my konica i get more shift when duplexing left to right then TOP to bottom duplex. If i can i make sure i run Top Duplex.

Also some of the cheaper endurance papers, which we all love because of price, tend to shrink on the duplex side a bit on the inconsistent side.


Rule of thumb for all Konica's are .125 bleed on all sides should cover your drift in all directions. Don't run biz cards on 12x18 or 13x19, cut the sheets in half and run them 9x12 LEF, if its super heavy stock over 300gsm we manually duplex.

you shoudl have some manual laser controls to help with paper shrinkage and other items. When we run books on more then 1 stock it does take a while to dial it in, heavy cover, light text, especially gloss....

I like the specs of the Ricoh machines just think they don't have a lot of time in the game of real production printing.
 
I work at Ricoh Corporate in the marketing department of the print production group. If possible, I would like see about understanding your situation, and engaging the next level of support to see what can be done to resolve your issues. Please drop me a line with your contact information.
 
I am not a Ricoh guy, but with my konica i get more shift when duplexing left to right then TOP to bottom duplex. If i can i make sure i run Top Duplex.

Also some of the cheaper endurance papers, which we all love because of price, tend to shrink on the duplex side a bit on the inconsistent side.

Rule of thumb for all Konica's are .125 bleed on all sides should cover your drift in all directions. Don't run biz cards on 12x18 or 13x19, cut the sheets in half and run them 9x12 LEF, if its super heavy stock over 300gsm we manually duplex.

you shoudl have some manual laser controls to help with paper shrinkage and other items. When we run books on more then 1 stock it does take a while to dial it in, heavy cover, light text, especially gloss....

I like the specs of the Ricoh machines just think they don't have a lot of time in the game of real production printing.

I run all jobs with .125" bleed and between .0625 and .125" cut margin. It does help combat the drift issues.

The laser controls on this machine are super rough in my opinion. 1 tick of movement = 0.5mm. I can't understand for the life of me why they wouldn't give the machine operator finer adjustment. Even the entry level Xerox machines allow for .1mm movement, from what I recall.

I like the specs of the Ricoh machine that I was told before I leased it. It averages about 17 sheets a minute for duplexed, 111#, 12pt C2S. Starting at about 150 sheets though, it tends to start drifting along the long edge. For runs over 1000 sheets I end up seeing 1.5-2mm front to back movement with feed. I'm still trying to figure out if that is normal for these machines. No one that owns one is responding on here.
 
I work at Ricoh Corporate in the marketing department of the print production group. If possible, I would like see about understanding your situation, and engaging the next level of support to see what can be done to resolve your issues. Please drop me a line with your contact information.

I will contact you through a private message on here to get your contact information. It would be great to talk to someone that is from out of my area about this. Thanks for chiming in!
 
Our 900 has almost no drift whatsoever.. And I've heard the 751 is many steps up - we almost bought one a few months ago. If ours is off on the first sheet, I adjust and run; no intra-run checks for us on cover stock. And that's duplexing 14pt (remember the 900 can "only" duplex 80# cover). Now the 14pt I'm using is not "nice" by any means, but it's not super cheap. When I run super cheap, I get strange problems.
My tech told me that the temperature of the machine is not 100% consistent over a long run - a variance of a couple degrees C - so if you're using super cheap paper that shrinks and stretches a lot, it seems like there's really no way around the registration issues.

Just my $0.02
 
I ran a C900 when they first came out, and front/back wasn't great, but there was no strange scaling/skewing on one side only as you describe. Sounds like it may be something out of the ordinary in your case. (something other than paper shrinkage) Print and date/time stamp samples to show the exact issue and how it occurs. It seems like more than a simple issue over .5 vs 2mm. Good luck.
 
I'm currently going through the same issues with our new RICOH c901+. The operator side registration is dead on, the non operator side is consistently off. It appears to be printing each side crooked but in opposite directions. Did anyone find a workaround or fix for this problem. I'm currently printing one side and re-installing the paper to print the other side.
 
So it's only off on auto duplex? Could you post a sample? Not sure if there would be a way to post one so we could see it.
 
I'll look into a way to post a sample asap. Or at least an example of what I'm seeing. For now I have a workaround so I'm content.
 
C901s Registration

C901s Registration

We have installed several of these units with no [rpblem whatsoever with registration on that stock or even heavier. The problem stems on how the techncial personnel at Ricoh adjust for registration. the procedure they use is wrong and never works probably or consitenly. Our service department has never received a single call for registratione etc.. They need to come back and adjust it probably...






Before I leased this machine, I pinned the local Ricoh sales people down on what to expect with front to back registration on 12pt, 111#, C2S cover stock. They stated I could expect .5mm registration front to back. Luckily, for what it's worth, I have this in writing.

Shortly after the machine was installed, I started to experience some major fluctuations with front to back registration. Registration along the long edge of the non-operator's side of the sheet would drift up to 2mm across a print run of 500 sheets+. No other points of registration on the sheet would drift. Basically, just one area of the printing was stretching/shrinking.

A specialist was flown in to inspect the machine's general settings and they passed. It was at this point that I was told to expect a registration variance of .5mm for every 200mm of sheet size. This equates to 2mm front to back on a 13"x19" sheet. I would have never leased this machine had I known this. Xerox's smaller, light production boxes have more consistent registration than this. I was consistently getting .5mm-1mm front to back from a sweetly tuned x700.

The long edge registration drift mysteriously went away a few months ago, but it was replaced by a uniform with-feed registration drift. Every morning when I start up the machine, I can expect a 2mm registration difference if running a test print of the exact same job using the exact same settings and paper as the previous day. It typically takes about 300 sheets of paper and constant baby sitting to normalize the registration back to centered. It would seem that it could be a heat issue, but the humidity and temperature in my press room is consistently congruent with Ricoh's recommendations.

At this point, Ricoh is refusing to honor a written performance commitment and they will not replace the machine with a like or newer model. They are standing by the machine's 2mm registration tolerance even though I have in writing to expect .5mm. Is anyone else who is running a c901 or c901+ experiencing this type of registration behavior? Your input is greatly appreciated.
 
We also run Ricoh machine, to be exact C651. Our registration is dead on, to a point that we are running 1mm bleed and we can trim it like offset printed products. We can also gold foil business card cut down from 24 up with hairline registration.

However, there are tricks that I learn thru trial and error.

1.) Do not duplex the paper, manually duplex it. Because no paper is 100% perpendicular, no matter how you cut it. No trimmer can get exact same size top and bottom stack after trim. This method almost guarantee horizontal alignment.
2.) service tech say you don't really need to align the paper in the tray, the registration system will realign the paper. I found it otherwise. Your side guide needs to be lock in tight and just loose enough for the paper to fit in the tray, We have the side panel removed so we can put our hands in to stack the paper neatly within the tray after the tray been raised.
3.) never buy cheap paper.
4.) this is obvious but just in case you missed this, run short grain.
5.) if size allowed, I prefer to retrim the paper when it gets here

I think these solution just apply to me because I found the perfect balance between the printer, operator, paper supplier and trimmer. There might be other reason as well, so good luck.
 
We just had a C901 installed about a month ago. There's a bit of a learning curve as I've been operating an Indigo 3500 for the last five and a half years. Overall, the results are very good. HOWEVER, front to back registration is most poor on the lighter weight stocks like 80# and 100# gloss text. When I get to the heavier stocks, that's when I see better registration. Not perfect, just better.
Our biggest problem now is banding. Especially with flat tints and gradients but also with solids (Mostly in magenta). They don't know how to fix it and the tech just keeps repeating the same statement. "It's not a press". We understand that it's not a press but we can't sell work with obvious banding in it. Period.
We're waiting for an answer from some higher ups at Ricoh.
 
HI, Both of those should be solveable. I seem to recall (it's been a few years) having a spare freshly rebuilt fuser on hand. We would just swap in the fuser when we had banding and the tech would rebuild the other one at his/her leisure. The registration just needs to be worked though. It should come in close to 1 mm front to back. Good luck!
 
HI, Both of those should be solveable. I seem to recall (it's been a few years) having a spare freshly rebuilt fuser on hand. We would just swap in the fuser when we had banding and the tech would rebuild the other one at his/her leisure. The registration just needs to be worked though. It should come in close to 1 mm front to back. Good luck!

Thanks Mark. We've changed the fuser. Makes no difference. Now they're telling us the ozone is affecting the drums and that the room needs more air circulation. The other approach is for them to install an internal power supply that would increase the output of the fans that circulate the airflow in the machine. Also, they recommended leaving the machine on 24/7 and letting it go into sleep mode. That way, the fans will still be working and will prevent the drums from collecting a residual charge. So the tech came in late yesterday (with a BIG chip on his shoulder, cause this is the fourth time he's had to change the drums) and changed all the drums again. We left the machine on last night and came in to find MORE banding. Now, if this is a chronic problem on ALL of these specific units then they need to give us our money back, cause as I've previously stated, we can't sell this kind of work. If it's not, then they need to either fix this problem or replace it with another unit.
 
We had the banding issue on the long edge sheet direction (it would step across 5 or 6 sheets in various positions, the step was 43 - 44 mm). Happened on a few colors, drums were replace. Usually seen on jobs with a gradation on Monday morning - after being off for the weekend.
Ozone was mentioned as a cause for the buildup, and the machine needed time to properly 'vent' or cool down before shutting down....(did not seem to help)
Our tech was very knowledgeable and pro-active on this and installed the 'alway-on' power thingy that keeps the fans in the unit running even when powered down. This seemingly eliminated the issue for us, have not seen an issue in the month since this 'fix' was installed.
Output from this machine has been wonderful, nice piece of hardware....so far......
 
Thanks MWC. That was the reply I hoping to get. Just curious. Can you elaborate on the "always-on" power thingy. Was this a part that was replaced or added on as a modification of sorts? Did you have to have your drums replaced after this installation. I'm kind of dreading having our tech come back to replace them for a fifth time. For some reason, he's in hot water with his boss and seems to want to blame me. Not that I care so much, just seems like we got off on the wrong foot because of this problem,
 
Thanks MWC. That was the reply I hoping to get. Just curious. Can you elaborate on the "always-on" power thingy. Was this a part that was replaced or added on as a modification of sorts? Did you have to have your drums replaced after this installation. I'm kind of dreading having our tech come back to replace them for a fifth time. For some reason, he's in hot water with his boss and seems to want to blame me. Not that I care so much, just seems like we got off on the wrong foot because of this problem,

This was a separate black box, about the size of a shoe box....that sits behind our machine just plugged into our 110v UPS. It just has a green light showing that the power is on. tech had to plug stuff into the engine so that it controlled the fans, even when the main(red) switch is OFF). The drums have not been replaced since this was installed (now, I know that these drums are a part that does need to be cleaned/replaced/serviced after every 400 or 800k impressions...but our tech keeps track of the log for these Preventative Maintenance items so they are serviced appropriately.)
 
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