Newbie needing advise on Ricoh printer

[bms]

Would be more interested to know what "long term performance" tests Sawgrass does on the ones they approve, given that everything from Epson to Ricoh seem to have problems at some time or another even if they are "approved".

If the suggestion is that only those printers Sawgrass perform "long term performance" tests on are any good, then this implies that printer OEMs are routinely shoving inferior/rubbish printers out the door. Do Ricoh strike you as the kind of printer manufacturer that would devote loving care onto the GXe3300 at the same time as risking ruining their reputation by kicking the "rubbish" GXe2600 out the door? Seems unlikely, doesn't it?

Comparing the two models on the Ricoh website, they seem almost identical except for the network connectivity.

You might argue the same with the 3300 and the 3350 but these perform remarkedly different with the 3350 banding very quickly.

[JSR]

You might argue the same with the 3300 and the 3350 but these perform remarkedly different with the 3350 banding very quickly.

But this implies that Sawgrass are suggesting that Ricoh purposefully released an inferior printer that produces banding. It's more likely that Sawgrass just got a dodgy printer, and further tests would have proved this. It's commonplace these days for printer manufacturers to use common parts in similar printers because it's cheaper to make more of the same than it is to make several different designs. They just throttle back and remove components of the cheaper models.

I think it's likely that Sawgrass just don't want to support too many printers and, while everyone is happy to have Sawgrass tell them what printers to use, this situation will never change.

I suspect Sawgrass just prefer this "tail wagging the dog" situation that we're in because it keeps them in control. If not, then the only message to take away from this is a warning that the time may come when all Ricoh printers will suffer from banding. After all, if Ricoh release one with banding they may as well release them all like that. What will happen to everyone who's put their faith in the "approved" path then?

[bms]

But this implies that Sawgrass are suggesting that Ricoh purposefully released an inferior printer that produces banding. It's more likely that Sawgrass just got a dodgy printer, and further tests would have proved this. It's commonplace these days for printer manufacturers to use common parts in similar printers because it's cheaper to make more of the same than it is to make several different designs. They just throttle back and remove components of the cheaper models.

I think it's likely that Sawgrass just don't want to support too many printers and, while everyone is happy to have Sawgrass tell them what printers to use, this situation will never change.

I suspect Sawgrass just prefer this "tail wagging the dog" situation that we're in because it keeps them in control. If not, then the only message to take away from this is a warning that the time may come when all Ricoh printers will suffer from banding. After all, if Ricoh release one with banding they may as well release them all like that. What will happen to everyone who's put their faith in the "approved" path then?

Don't know all the ins and outs, but I'm pretty confident Sawgrass wouldn't have come to this conclusion based on 1 GXe3350 banding:rolleyes: . We've been advised/ reminded of the issues on the 3350 now for quite some time (can't recall how long, but if memory serves it was way back last year). I think Justin even commented that he couldn't get a good print on his 3350 a few days ago.

[Justin]

This is true, both the 3350 and the 5050 suffered bad banding for me. I'm yet to see a decent Ricoh sublimation print but that isn't stopping me looking at buying a 3300 or 7700 in the next couple of weeks

[JSR]

It seems very odd that, out of all of their printers that Ricoh produce, the *only* two that produce good prints are the 3300 and the 7700. Must have pretty awful engineers working on all the other models, then... :rolleyes:

Statistically, that makes Ricoh a pretty poor printer manufacturer. Think I'll stay away from them.

[John G]

My 5050n is still fine.:biggrin:

[sarahjayne]

It seems very odd that, out of all of their printers that Ricoh produce, the *only* two that produce good prints are the 3300 and the 7700. Must have pretty awful engineers working on all the other models, then... :rolleyes:

Statistically, that makes Ricoh a pretty poor printer manufacturer. Think I'll stay away from them.

from the t -shirt forum ....


The 3350 works perfect.
I have one on my desk.
The 3300 icc profile works fine.
The only difference is the 3350 has an extra
Personality called pcl. We use rpcs.
__________________
David Gross, Conde Systems
www.conde.com 251.377.6728

[JSR]

from the t -shirt forum ....


The 3350 works perfect.
I have one on my desk.
The 3300 icc profile works fine.
The only difference is the 3350 has an extra
Personality called pcl. We use rpcs.
__________________
David Gross, Conde Systems
www.conde.com 251.377.6728

I'm not at all surprised.

This wouldn't be the first time that artificial reasons were used for Sawgrass to avoid "supporting" other printers. When the B40W and B1100 came out as supported printers, it didn't take a genius to see that if Sawgrass had chosen the correct cartridges for their Easyflow system, we could all have had a choice of almost 40 different printers that would use the same cartridges. All Sawgrass had to do was to provide profiles.

But no. They'd much rather use the other type of cartridges that only supported one printer - so we ended up with no choice whatsoever.

When the discussion of using Brother printers came up, we learned that Sawgrass had once looked at them but dismissed them as not being good enough. Yes, they're so bad that I've been using them for over a year now and they've been far less hassle than Epson printers with an Easyflow and far cheaper than a Ricoh with much more choice than Sawgrass will ever give us.

The only conclusion that can really be drawn from this is that Sawgrass don't make these decisions/choices that restrict the number of supported printers for the benefit of those who buy their inks, but for themselves. They seemingly want to do the least work possible, and so they pick a printer to support and that's what we have to use. End of discussion.

That's why Conde say the 3350 is okay, why Transfer Press say the 2600 is okay, why John G says the 5050 is okay, why I say Brother are okay, and why others use Epson printers that Sawgrass would rather they didn't use, all the time while Sawgrass maintain that none of them are any good.

The situation is worse now with Ricoh than it was with Epson because you could always buy a third-party CISS or refillables for an "unsupported" Epson. With Ricoh you have to buy pre-filled cartridges from Sawgrass. So if Sawgrass say you're not going to use your choice of printer, that's it really. They're making our business decisions for us. If we ever see refillable cartridges for Ricoh printers, I'll bet we suddenly find that a lot of Ricoh printers are just fine for dye-sub use.

[Justin]

Refil carts are available for all those Ricoh printers.

[JSR]

Justin, can you provide a link?

I might be interested in looking at Ricoh in the fullness of time if I knew where to get refillables from.