Upgrading Versant 180

[marlin64]

I am currently looking to upgrade my Versant 180. I am fed up with the poor quality of the toner and image drums. I am looking at the Versant 4100 but I am afraid that may be having problems as well.

What would be a good alternative to a 4100 from Canon, Ricoh and Konica Minolta. I have been a Xerox user for over 25 years and am not familiar with the other vendor's machines. Is anyone having specific problems with any of the other vendors?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[psiprinting]

We are running a V-80 that has the same issues with toner and drums and also considered the V-4100.
We also decided to steer away from Xerox after 3 generations of their color machines.
One of the other reasons we decided to leave them was over how they charge a large sheet click for 11x17 and above sizes.
After a lot of research we decided on the Ricoh 9210. It was priced competitively with the 4100 but performs better than the more expensive Irridesse.
It has the lowest click charge of any machine we looked at as well.
Our second choice was the Canon10010VP. It too was an impressive machine and we got the price down to the 9210 level but we liked the speed and stock range of the Ricoh better along with how highly those that owned the Ricoh speak of it.

 

[kslight]

The Ricoh 7200 series is probably most comparable volume machine to the v 180, the 9200 series would be the big guy.

On the KM side the 7090 is their latest in that size.

We have a KM 6085 and I have a lot of issues with the machine but having not used another of this model I don’t know if we got a bad machine, or bad service, or if they are all like ours. The machine was already here when i came on (i previously was at a Xerox shop). But i also have a contact at another shop in town that is determined to break his lease 3 years early on his, he is also currently a Ricoh customer. KM has serious toner supply issues, factory exploded in august and it’s been difficult to keep toner on the shelf. I had to resort to buying toner on eBay recently to keep it running. Our technicians also almost never have common parts like drums and Corotrons, I’m not sure if that’s supply issues or how their manager makes them do things, but basically every service call is 2+ days before it gets fixed.

I have had a Ricoh 7210 on order since late September and it’s still not here yet, keeps getting pushed back, it’s pretty frustrating but I would advise if you’re going to buy a new machine to find out when you’re going to actually get it, with the chip shortages and current world events good luck..I don’t know what promise dates anyone is giving if you buy one today. Supposedly it is in the port now, which means probably first week of April at the earliest. I’ve heard the 9210 might be easier to get, I probably would have tried to get that in the door instead if I knew that 6 months ago, but of course it is more expensive, larger, needs a lot more juice, and would be overkill for our tiny print space / average volume.


I talked to a lot of Ricoh people in town before buying and couldn’t get them to give me any major complaints (there are a couple that had the 7100 series printer which had a couple design limitations the 7200 series fixed…things like that).

 

[Sertech]

I service the canon imagepress. Impressive machine. I have a customer with 36 million on one, 27 million on their second. They've run as high as over 1 million a month on them. Both are still going strong and still pretty reliable. Now canon has added a cooling unit and sensing unit to automatically adjust registration and color. I've never seen it in practice so I can't say how it works. I've seen the ricoh 72xx do its automatic registration and that was impressive. We sell both brands, both seem to be good machines. Nether have had trouble with toner as far as I know. Ricoh finishers are a little problematic to get, though. Canon's prismaSync is better than fiery, and I've heard pretty natural for people coming from xerox.

 

[richsweeney]

We have the v180, on our 5th year, and we cannot get it to keep working longer than 12 hours of run time. I had to buy my own toner because it was back ordered for 3 months. And they will not reimburse me for it. Does anyone use a Konica Minolta?

 

[kslight]

We have the v180, on our 5th year, and we cannot get it to keep working longer than 12 hours of run time. I had to buy my own toner because it was back ordered for 3 months. And they will not reimburse me for it. Does anyone use a Konica Minolta?

I just got out of a KM, the toner supply issues are / were real, for almost the past year it seemed we were always wondering when the next meager ration of toner would be in, always begging sales and various higher ups for toner, we had to buy some on ebay, and techs never had parts.

We have had a Ricoh in since the end of March and have a good supply of toner, and no issues getting more if I want it.

 

[PrintingInLincs]

I've hated my Versant 180 since it was installed. Virtually ruined my life.

 

[pippip]

I've hated my Versant 180 since it was installed. Virtually ruined my life.

Yes and your previous thread on the subject clearly showed you had a terrible understanding of how to use it and how it worked.
Nothing to do with the machine.

 

[Ynot_UK]

I've hated my Versant 180 since it was installed. Virtually ruined my life.

This has been done to death on your previous threads.
There’s nothing wrong with your machine, it’s operator error.
Sell the machine, sub out the printing and fulfilment.
Concentrate on what you’re good at, i.e. sourcing and reworking artwork and marketing.

 

[PrintingInLincs]

Yes and your previous thread on the subject clearly showed you had a terrible understanding of how to use it and how it worked.
Nothing to do with the machine.

Seems to be a lot of people not liking the V180 experience on printplanet but we'll agree to disagree.

 

[Mr Production Print]

The Konica Minolta c4080 is the equivalent to the Versant 180. Toner is back on track now. The Versant 4100 is a step up in productivity (and indeed price). The Ricoh c9200 is an even bigger step up and would compare with an Iridesse and Konica Minolta C14000. The Ricoh c7200 and KM c7090 might be ideal middle-ground options. Both have excellent image quality, the Ricoh has the 5 colour option if you're attracted to that, the KM has better inline finishing and a better click rate! Hope this helps.