Wide Format

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Yes, it's been some time since Ricoh updated the Ricoh MP cw2201.  Covid19 has cramped a lot of the office equipment manufactures introductions for the last two years.  Thus almost since years since the intro of the MP cw2201 the new IM cw2200 adds some new features and a few wrinkles that Surveyors will love.  The I stands for Intelligent and the M for multi-functional!

Waterproof inks

Not only is the ink waterproof but it's also UV resistant, no longer will ink smear or run if the document gets wet.  Unlike other plotters that use 5 colors, the Ricoh uses only four colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black), which means it's less expensive to buy four cartridges rather than five. Simple stuff right?

GEL-Jet technology

GEL-Jet technology is really pretty cool and that's because even though the ink is liquid, it's leaving behind a dry toner particle.  The liquid acts as a carrying agent for the toner. When the liquid carrying agent comes into contact with the paper the carrying agent evaporates and leaves behind the dry toner particle.  Thus in my eyes you have the best of both worlds for ink and toner.  The image is dry and won't smear nor run, and there is much less energy used with GEL-Jet printers over color laser printers.  Thus the GEL-Jet typically uses 90% less power thus helping to reduce C02 emissions.

Scan Technology

It wasn't until I worked with a competitors wide format plotter when I found out that wide format plotter could not scan or email a document to multiple scan locations (email or folder).  Thus clients that need to scan documents to multiple locations in one pass can appreciate how the Ricoh IM cw2201 can save a tremendous amount of time scanning. I'll admit many users scan more than they copy. Can you imagine the time wasted to send the same drawing/plot to 5 users five times?  geesh!

Scan Exit Technology

Every competitor to the Ricoh uses an outdated process for scanning documents except for the Ricoh.  Let's say you need to scan 10 pages for a bid request, thus with the competitors you'll need to place one document a time in the scanner, then wait for the document to scan, then wait for the document to exit the scanner and then remove the scanned document before you insert the next document. I'm sorry but that's an outdated process that I call "one in and one out" and huge waste of time!

Our Ricoh IM cw2200 offers a document exit tray for scanned documents to stack in.  The Ricoh process means you place the document in the feeder, when the document is scanned you then place each document that's next in line.  When the scanning is complete, you grab the scanned pages from the stacker exit tray and remove the ten pages.  Incredible time save!

Auto Firmware Updates

Firmware is everywhere and without firmware most if not all electronic devices will not work.  Firmware is a set of software instructions that tells the hardware what to do. In the past firmware for printers, copiers, scanners had to be installed by a technician when the manufacturer needed to update a piece of hardware.  If it ain't broke don't fix it was the code that manufacturers and dealers lived by.  The reason for that is because each on site call costs the manufacturers money.  Of course if the machine was not operating correctly one of the fixes could be installing the new firmware.

Auto updates eliminates the need for a tech to be on-site and ensures that of the manufacturers hardware can be updated via the internet quickly.  Many of those updates are for security as well as hardware fixes.  You can learn more here for firmware security.

Closing

There's my five reasons, however there are many more that would take too much time to list tonight  The IM cw2200 is priced in the middle of the road for color 36" plotters that scan, copy and print.  The IM cw 2200 can also be equipped with a dual roll feeder which makes it nice to print 36" documents along with an 18" roll of paper for check plots.  If you're in New Jersey, feel free to reach out to me apost@p4photel.com, if out side for New Jersey give me a buzz also and I can put in touch with some great reps that can help.

-=Good Selling=-

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What a great way to help sell wide format scanners and printers, this idea will enable surveyors to add an additional profit center and subsidize the cost of the color wide format printer or scanner
#wideformatprinting #wideformatscanning #scanning #surveyor

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I believe I captured this video off Linkedin. I'm familiar with print speed and if you look at the amount of prints that exit compared to the seconds that elapse the is no way that this printer prints at the 100 "D" size pages a minute. In fact Canon states the black print speed is 4 "D" per minute.

Watching the video and counting the seconds one would lead to believe that it prints one per second.

Of course we know this is not the case, but what about the client/user that is not familiar with the these devices and the print speeds.

It's a nice machine, however I believe either they the real speed of the prints in the video or don't show the print speed at all.

=Good Selling=-

Plotters and Wide Format Printers

With summer brings the awful heat and humidity to New Jersey along with damp paper issues for plotters. Damp paper will cause print and copy quality issues because the toner and or ink doesn’t adhere to damp paper well. One of the ways to tell if the paper is damp is that the print of copy looks muddled or not a fully formed image. Our technicians refer to the issue as “blotching of the image”.

Extreme high and low humidity can cause print & copy quality issues. In most cases, keeping your office or company facility at a comfortable level of humidity will solve or mitigate such problems.

The good news is that there's a variety of fixes that can be installed to prevent your plotter paper from getting damp.

Fixing Damp Paper Issues

1. Each roll of paper is sealed in a plastic bag. Leave the roll of paper in the plastic until it’s needed. If the paper in the plotter is damp then replace with a fresh roll.
2. Many toner based wide format plotters (printers) have a drum dry switch that can be turned on or turned off. In some cases turning on the drum dry switch can help with damp paper
3. Purchase Silica Gel Desiccant packs and then place one pack in each of the roll feeders. I recommend the 1lb packs because they should last the entire summer. Replacement of those bags should be when we turn the clocks ahead for daylight savings time
4. Partial paper rolls should be store in plastic when not in use and the addition of a Silica Gel pack will drain the moisture out of the paper.
5. If you have a dedicated room for the wide format printers/plotter you may want to consider adding a de-humidifier

It’s my belief that the best course of action is the silica gel packs because they are a quick fix and inexpensive.

Jersey Plotters has been helping client with wide format printers and plotters for the last 25 years in New Jersey. We offer discounts for trade ins along with maintenance and supply agreements for new Ricoh and Epson wide format plotter/printers.

-=Greetings from Sandy Hook, NJ=-

If you've been selling wide format MFP's for some time I think you'll agree that the manufacturers have been slow on refreshing most models from most manufacturers.   Aside from KIP with the recent introduction of the KIP 600 toner based color wide format MFP (multi-functional product), the others are just regurgitating the same tired outdated wide formats for the AEC (architect, engineers and construction) market.

Five plus years is a long time to wait for a refresh of an existing model or something completely new.  Over the years I've had this talk track with many within the wide format community and the same question arises from every conversation. "What else can be added to wide format MFP's?"

Document Feeders

Is it really that hard to design a 10 page document feeder? I don't think so because it should be rather easy.  Yes,  you would need a larger area to stack the originals for feeding. But it could be designed in a way that it would fold away when not needed. The next question becomes where do the scanned originals stack?  That's easy and Ricoh is already doing it with the MP W6700. I kind of like the idea of not stacking the originals as they are scanned but rather to have them exit and then rolled. I'm pretty sure Ricoh had something like this years ago.  Clients are asking for document feeders in wide format, the reason most of us don't hear and because we're not asking the question.  What a tremendous advantage for the manufacturer that designs one first!

12x18 or 11x17 Paper Trays

With the previous models of Ricoh wide formats there was the ability to add a cut sheet paper tray. That paper tray was capable of holding letter, legal, tabloid and 12x18 (half size of 24x36).  Many clients would take advantage of this feature for printing check plots.  On some of the higher end toner based wide formats some of the manufacturers offer cut sheet trays.  But on most of the low end wide formats the cut sheet paper tray is not offered.  I think a cut sheet paper tray should be offered on both low end and high end.  Seems to me that the manufacturers are making what they want and not what the clients need.

Original Document Exit Trays

I touched on this with the section under Document Feeder.  Whether it's a flat stack or a roll stack device document stacking needs to be an option on all devices (toner and ink).  It's archaic that clients still need to feed one document at a time isn't it?

Print Stackers

And not the type where the print falls into a cloth basket.  My goodness is our industry that cheap that we can't figure out a better system?  I know of one manufacturers  has a standard exit print stacker and I cringe every time I have to sell against it.  Thank goodness that device is at the low end of the market. Which makes my point, if it's possible to design for a low end ink based wide format why oh why can't it be offered on all devices!

Tameran is no longer offering document exit stackers for wide format MFP's. I would tend to think that the manufacturers need to step up their game.

Toner Based Color Wide Format

Here's the next holy grail for wide format.  Bring to market a toner based MFP that will have an MSRP of $22K.  Thus with the $22K we know where the dealer cost will be.  More and more clients want to print color in wide format. What the clients don't like is to have two devices (color and black), clients also don't want to pay the high price of color ink.  Coming to market with a toner based wide format will at $22K will eliminate many of the existing color plotters in the field.  Reps will be able to cost justify the sale of toner based color wide formats  on the supply and maintenance costs.

In the end, I feel like 4-5 years is way to long to wait for a new model.  In some cases we as sales people have no upgrade path for the client at the end of a five lease.

All I can hope for is that just maybe this blog will open some eyes and manufacturers will give the clients the features and the price points that will help.

-=Good Selling=

It's late on Friday night, for most their work is over for the week. Me, I need to do updates and frankly I've been lagging in my blogging as of late. It's not because I don't want to write, it's mainly because there hasn't been something that triggered me to write.  Nothing unusual in sales, nothing unusual in the field and I've had my nose to the grindstone looking to hit numbers.

Until tonight when I needed to post up my series "This Week in the Copier Industry 15 Years Ago this Week".  Nice thing about this site is that you can select advanced search button (see below) and search through tens of thousands of threads about the copier industry since 2003.

You click the Advanced Search and you'll come up to the se3arch menu (see below) or the link I created.

It's a real nice search tool and you have the ability to filter for the forums, blogs, chats, photo's, video's, you name it's there

Right, back to what I wanted to write about. It was this week 15 years ago when Ricoh launched the famous Ricoh MP 240W digital wide format copier/printer/scanner.  I wanted to reach back and write about was it was like in those glory days of wide format. BTW, it's famous because it ROCKED!

It was a fantastic time for me in sales.  I guess I was at the right spot at the right time. Similar to when Minolta launched the Minolta 450Z copy machine back in 1984.

The picture above illustrates the 240W along with the plot server software that was required to run on a stand alone PC.  No software meant no print or scan, just a wide format copier that could reduce or enlarge.  Thinking back about 90% of placements included the PC and the software.

Ricoh broke the bank with the MP 240W in 2004.  There was no other digital wide format like it that could print/scan and copy for the price.  Many Architects, Engineers and Construction companies were farming out prints and scans to repro shops, and Staples for .50 -1.00 per square foot. It didn't take that many prints to cost justify the 240W at MSRP.  Selling at MSRP would net you about $8-$9K in GP and the commissions were 50% of the GP. It was not uncommon to take home $10-$14K a month. 

Having a product as unique as the 240W made a heck of a lot of sense to go and knock on as many doors as possible.  In most cases you were welcomed with arms wide open because the news was spreading about the price and the feature set of the 240W.

There was no haggling on price, well okay there might have been when we were up against Ricoh Direct.  But if Ricoh Direct was not in, then our price was  our price.  If the buyer was not interested it would only be a few days before we turned up additional prospects. 

We were fortunate at the dealer I worked for back in 2004.  Prior to taking on Ricoh in the mid nineties we also were a dealer for Xerox wide format analog copiers.  I came on board in mid 1998 when we had just switched to Ricoh and we were placing the FW 740, 750 & 760 analog Ricoh wide format copiers.

Yup from 2004-2006 we had that market controlled before Xerox launched their first digital wide format.  Believe it or not we even delivered the 240Ws for on-site demonstrations. We sold everyone we demo'd!

There were some growing pains with understanding the AEC market, but Ricoh had some excellent DSM's, and product trainers that gave us the basics.  We pounded them out left and right  and all were single placements, all had high GP and we gained mega new accounts.  Gaining those new accounts also gave us opportunities to place digital copiers.

After 15 years, we still have a few in the field.  Hard to believe right?  Like I said Ricoh hit a home run with the print engine, and the compact size of the device.

Yes, those were the days!

-=Good Selling=-