Ricoh Gen4 Printhead installation

[billsines]

Hey all,

So as it turns out, I have a black printhead that has gone bad in my printer. So I have looked around online to find a replacement, and new they are looking around $1400. So after talking to support at Stratojet, they are telling me I have to get the one from my original supplier, Wensco, at a price of $3000 because "it has to be coded to work with our machine, or it may cause damage to the other electronics." They are also wanting to charge me an additional $1400 for installation by their guys. So $4400.

I have been troubleshooting all of our other machines all these years, which include CNC machines, laser engravers, paint booths, vacuum coaters, saws, etc etc etc. I am skeptical, to say the least, that this part is not just plug and play. I understand there will be some alignment procedures to go through, but this "you can't do it yourself" thing is rubbing me the wrong way.

So the question is, is this a plug and play part or is there really some kind of "coding" that needs to be done?

 

[Solventinkjet]

The main difference between you doing it and their tech doing it is if you mess up, you just lost $3000. If they mess up, they have to fix it.

I have hundreds of customers from all kinds of backgrounds who have installed their own heads. We sell mostly Roland, Mimaki, and Mutoh heads which are Epson based. Compared to the Epson heads, the Ricoh heads are more difficult to install but mostly because they use positive pressure instead of negative pressure which just means there are more tubes to reconnect. Overall I would say if you have experience working on other machines you should be fine if you can find a tech manual. Usually from what I see people have the hardest time with the alignments as they can be confusing.