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Equipment Redundancy - Bad idea to rely on one printer?

Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
victor bogdanov said:
My service experiences have been great too up until this point.

Canon is getting close to fixing the printer, I'm hoping Monday it will be printing again. This might end up being a very simple/common problem that happens in any brand printer

One option I'll explore is getting the self service plan for the Colorado, I remember reading there is a way to get trained to fix your own machine.
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You can learn for free if you hover over the techs while they are there. Annoying? Yes. It's more annoying to have your machine down and pay stupid money for people that aren't willing to work past 5 to get it repaired. That's kind of the point of having a service contract.
 
Saturn

Saturn

Aging Member
Probably already mentioned—but having a printer with two heads that's capable of running in single-head mode can be a MAJOR life saver. Considering most printer issues start with lost nozzles or channels. Lets you limp along until parts and service can show up. The Epson 80600 is like this.

Maybe not true redundancy, but a good trick!
 
V

victor bogdanov

Active Member
Notarealsignguy said:
You can learn for free if you hover over the techs while they are there. Annoying? Yes. It's more annoying to have your machine down and pay stupid money for people that aren't willing to work past 5 to get it repaired. That's kind of the point of having a service contract.
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You can't do anything on the colorado without service key. Nothing to learn without the key. Can't even find out what the error codes mean
 
N

netsol

Active Member
victor bogdanov said:
Today Canon put in a great effort after the escalations, 3 techs looking at the machine, I feel like they did all they could. Unfortunately did not make any progress on the repairs.

I doubt this will be resolved this week but I am getting some prints out by using a friend's printer
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that's awful. you have quite a print volume to get printed.
i have many issues with the way canon/colorado/oce' does things, but, normally their techs are competent and familiar eith teir equipment
 
Pauly

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
Saturn said:
Probably already mentioned—but having a printer with two heads that's capable of running in single-head mode can be a MAJOR life saver. Considering most printer issues start with lost nozzles or channels. Lets you limp along until parts and service can show up. The Epson 80600 is like this.

Maybe not true redundancy, but a good trick!
Click to expand...
This is very rare to get in a printer, especially top end ones. I know you can do it with the Epson. The Colorado has 8 heads. Technically you can run it in 4 head mode at a reduced speed. (this is the 1630 basically) but there's no way if making the 1650 do it. (if there was a head issue)
 
V

victor bogdanov

Active Member
Saturn said:
Probably already mentioned—but having a printer with two heads that's capable of running in single-head mode can be a MAJOR life saver. Considering most printer issues start with lost nozzles or channels. Lets you limp along until parts and service can show up. The Epson 80600 is like this.

Maybe not true redundancy, but a good trick!
Click to expand...
The R5070L I bought has user replaceable head plus I bought a service manual in case the 2 year warranty doesn't deliver knowledgeable techs
 
V

victor bogdanov

Active Member
netsol said:
that's awful. you have quite a print volume to get printed.
i have many issues with the way canon/colorado/oce' does things, but, normally their techs are competent and familiar eith teir equipment
Click to expand...
I'm caught up but only because I extended my delivery times, sales -75% last 13 days. Algorithms and customers don't like the long delivery times during this peak season for my products.

Worst 2 weeks sales wise in 13 years + in business. Can't sell what you can't print.

Never crossed my mind that a printer with a service contract could be down for this long, this is likely to turn out to be a very common issue too, just extremely bad troubleshooting by techs
 
JBurton

JBurton

Signtologist
ikarasu said:
I just had my graphtec in for repair for 4 months because they couldnt figure it out - They worked on it maybe an hour a week... Because why repair something fast that you cant bill the customer for, when you could be doing other repairs and making money while riding out the service agreement?
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FTFY, well tweaked it mostly.
victor bogdanov said:
One option I'll explore is getting the self service plan for the Colorado, I remember reading there is a way to get trained to fix your own machine.
Click to expand...
You mean you get to pay them to work for them? That sounds like indentured servitude with extra steps...
 
V

victor bogdanov

Active Member
The printer is fixed finally, 13 days down for .........................., BIG REVEAL: worn out printhead ribbon cables.

The printhead ribbon cables were identified as a possible issue on day 1 but were only replaced after everything else in the chain was replaced, some parts were replaced more than once. (I though the cables were changed out earlier).
 
Pauly

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
victor bogdanov said:
The printer is fixed finally, 13 days down for .........................., BIG REVEAL: worn out printhead ribbon cables.

The printhead ribbon cables were identified as a possible issue on day 1 but were only replaced after everything else in the chain was replaced, some parts were replaced more than once. (I though the cables were changed out earlier).
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That's it? I'd be very livid,

Im surprised how long it took for them to solve that, even though mentioning it was a possible issue.

Glad it's fixed though.
 
V

victor bogdanov

Active Member
micadesign said:
would it be easier to change that cable at first place?
nice that you are back in the game again!
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You don't even have to take any covers off to replace those cables.

Error: power too low on printhead carriage

Possible bad parts identified on day one:

power supply, switch board, couple of other PCBs, printhead ribbon cables, carriage pcb, printhead

Everything listed above except for the cables was switched out, some of those parts switched out more than once. Cables were the last to get changed out


The techs said they have replaced those cables multiple times on other machines as the cables are known to wear out but have never replaced any of the other parts on any of the machines they work on (except printheads)
 
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Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
If those cables aren't real expensive, I'd keep a spare set. For as much as you spend on a service contract, it'd probably be cheaper to skip it and start throwing parts at it when it goes down. That's all they do but at least this way you can do it on your schedule and terms.
 
V

victor bogdanov

Active Member
Notarealsignguy said:
If those cables aren't real expensive, I'd keep a spare set. For as much as you spend on a service contract, it'd probably be cheaper to skip it and start throwing parts at it when it goes down. That's all they do but at least this way you can do it on your schedule and terms.
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I wish, I'm not sure there is a way to buy the parts. I'll check but doubt it. I have a short parts list of consumables but other than that I'm not sure if canon would sell any other parts
 
V

victor bogdanov

Active Member
Canon will do some preventative maintenance next week too on the machine, replace pulley bearings and belts, those are getting pretty worn out.
 
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