Useless Canon Service

[williamrohr]

Living 4 hours from a major city (San Francisco) has always had its challenges.  Epson, however, has always seemed to find ways to service our 7900 and 9900.  Canon service on the other hand is useless.  They can't even tell me who can service it.  Our ipf 8300 suddenly started producing a variety of error messages including the latest .... carrier cover open  ... when clearly it is closed.  The error even prevents turning the machine off (have to physically pull the plug from the wall).  $1000 worth of parts and $1000 worth of wasted ink later ... nothing changed.  Latest calls to Canon service yield either "I don't know" or "I can't tell you that".  Machine is on the third floor .... watch for the video of us pushing it out the window  .... unless someone has a better idea.  Any suggestions or names of an independent service which is competent would be appreciated. Such a shame since Canon has otherwise seemed to solve the clogging problem .... but electrical reliability>poor.

[Jeff Magidson]

Sorry to hear of your troubles. When I had an in warranty repair done on my ipf8300 Canon contracted Pitney Bowes to do the repair. I believe Pitney Bowes does Canon out of warranty repair work too, although it will be expensive.

[deanwork]

Yes it's Pitney Bowes.

Don't spend a lot on it. You can pick up a new 8400 for the price of a new set of inks.

I've never heard of any error messages like that. Sounds like one of the major boards is bad. Have you had any lightening storms while the printer was plugged in? That would do it.

john

[williamrohr]

Good guess but lightning and thunder are virtually non-existant where we live.  Besides, all of the printers are protected by very large commercial grade power conditioners that automatically record any out of spec power condition and the power has been spotless during this period.  How bad is it that we are to the point of "throw away" $5000 printers.  Between the Epson clogging issues and sudden electrical failures (apparently more common than generally known) in Canon .... where is the quality?  You are correct that the next link in the chain is the main logic board but that is a $800+ part plus installation and with no assurance it will fix it.  I wonder if it will crack the sidewalk when it hits?

[williamrohr]

Latest message from Canon ... they can't tell who can service the printer BUT they can tell me where to buy a new one.  I think I know where this is going .. don't stand below my window as you might get hit by falling debris.

[felix5616]

Sadly, i think this is how most manufacturers view customers. I recently had a very good experience with an out of warranty HP Z3200 printer. I called HP, spoke with a support person in costa rica, spent over 1 1/2 hours on the phone, no charge and got me up and running. But my understanding was that once out of warranty and past a certain age, just dump broken gear, its built into the equipment.

[joneil]

  I had a bad experience with HP last year.  Also has a poor experience with Xerox the year before that.   Boils down to this - unless you are under a paid service contract which you pay for every year, forget it, the attitude is "buy a new printer."     Even then I have had several issues.  Some of the replacement parts - the "real" part, that is, ones that come from HP, not a third party supplier, are not as good as the original part that came with the printer.  The answer HP gives me?  Buy a new printer.  Of course, the new printer stangely does not take either the same inks or the same toner cartidges that your "old" printer does, so to upgrade not only means a new printer, but a fortune in new inks & toner.  

     Or wait until you find out that brand new printer, still under warranty, needs a part that will take three weeks to get in from overseas.

   I remember my dad's century old printing press which we used right up into the 1980s.  I kid you not, it was cheaper to run than any computer printer we ever owned, and it was always faster and cheaper to get repaired too.  Not exaggerating here either.

   I use both high end Epson fine art printers and heavy duty Xerox colour printers, the kind that are rated for tens of thousands of copies per month, and you know what, I find they are all bad, just each in thier own way.   Brand new printer sitting here, cost me over $3,000, another $2,000 or so for the inks, and there are days I just want to throw the whole (insert your favourite profanities here) out the window too.

   So I don't know what to tell anybody.  I am seeing some real horror stories too from larger businesses and government institutions around issues with printers.  It is almost like that old story of the "800 pound gorillia" sitting in the corner of the rooom everybody is trying to pretend doesn't exist.
  
  So I hear you all, I just don't hae an answer.  Just having "one of those weeks" and needed to blow of some steam and say "yeah, me too."  Wish I had an answer, but I don't, so  thank's for the soapbox time.




  

[deanwork]

Has anyone else had this kind of premature main board failure on the IPF 8300 - 8400?

I haven't heard of any, but I'm not saying they don't exist, just that it doesn't seem to be epidemic with this series.

If you use the machines as a business yes, you should always keep them in warranty. I do like HPs policy of letting you buy an extended warranty at anytime. The last one I bought was I think $700.00 a year and it was 5 years old. I never used it but it was still worth the trouble. Canon and Epson especially should offer this kind of extended warranty. I believe the max warranty for Epson heads is like 2 years and that sucks, because as we all know when the Epson heads fail that's it.

John

[Misirlou]

I remember my dad's century old printing press which we used right up into the 1980s.  I kid you not, it was cheaper to run than any computer printer we ever owned, and it was always faster and cheaper to get repaired too.  Not exaggerating here either.

Do you suppose the manufacturer of that press is still in business? I doubt it. But Xerox, HP, Canon, et al still are. Might be some correlation there...

And to make it worse, it's not just printers. Also cars, refrigerators, cameras, you name it.

[mstevensphoto]

Has anyone else had this kind of premature main board failure on the IPF 8300 - 8400?

yes literally this month.

here's my new policy:

I'm not buying an extended warranty for $1300 a year, it's money wasted when an out of warranty service call is $1500. If I have another major failure I will evaluate whether the printer is amortized and buying a new one is a great deal or whether the $1500 "full service" canon offer makes more sense.

my current ipf8300 escapade left me $1281 down AND all of the ink and two maintenance cartridges. and it is still not fixed. Next is a $900 main board. if I had ANY idea it would be like that I'd say "F it" and buy a new one. I'm a hippy treehugger and I hate throwing something like this away, but why in the heavens would I spend that much fixing a printer that I can replace for $2999 after rebates, get a whole new set of ink cartridges and a new warranty.

for me the ipf8400 is on the way. I couldn't be happier with the 8300 when it is printing, it's just not worth fixing. The new one will pay for itself while still under warranty and it sucks to spend that much, it's ultimately a business expense.

[deanwork]

I know exactly what you mean. I'm still driving a 2001 Honda Accord and it still runs great and I plan to get another 100,000 miles out of it.

What I do now is to put the dead printer on Craigs List and offer it for free. Someone always shows up and hauls it away. I've done that 3 times.

Yea, it is crazy throwing something that big away and Such a waste. That damn warranty on the Canon is just TOO EXPENSIVE to make any sense, almost twice what I spent for the HP warranty. It's all crazy.  What is really great about the HP Z design is that the main board can be easily removed and replaced by removing two phillips screws from the top of the printer. Now that makes sense.  Some of their design guys were just really smart but they don't appreciate them. HP probably fired them all by now.

These giant Canons are built to last for decades but what is the point in that if they charge so much to replace a simple board, about what a new printer with inks cost….Why couldn't they make it where you can pop a new board in yourself and save everyone a lot of grief including their phone support people.

Make the things are are most likely to fail easy to get to and remove.

Back in the day we would keep our Epson's going by buying parts from Compas Micro and you could replace most anything yourself including heads, boards. etc. It wasn't easy but you could do it. But Epson put a stop to that by over engineering them with all that pressurized garbage, which has just fucked them up, and then clamping down on the suppliers of the parts. All that has done is piss us off. It's a damn wasteful industry in a throw away culture. The Europeans who have much better recycling programs for machinery than us must really think its crazy. Somehow in the US we just except that kind of stupid shit.

john

[Misirlou]

The Europeans who have much better recycling programs for machinery than us must really think its crazy. Somehow in the US we just except that kind of stupid shit.

john

I don't suppose Canon sells different printers in Europe, but maybe someone from there can tell us.

I think we got into this situation because computers and consumer products improved so fast for so long that we didn't mind replacing relatively young equipment, given the likelihood that the replacements were just so much faster/brighter/better. But I don't see any significant improvement in the printers that have become available since I bought my 9500 MK II, for example.

In some cases, the new things are actually much worse. I just had to replace my 10 year old electric razor, and the new one may send me back to blades.

[williamrohr]

I certainly agree with the comment that when it was printing, the iPF8300 was great.  I have never had anyone be able to see any obvious difference between the prints from the 8300 vs our Epson 9900, except that the Canon prints seemed to be significantly less sensitive to scratches and other handling blemishes (using the same paper in both).  The other issue was that the Canon NEVER clogged, the Epsons are always a challenge in that regard (although always clear fairly easily).  Since it would appear that they make their money primarily by selling the inks, you would think that they would make more durable printers because anytime you by a new one there is always the chance the buyer will change brands.  Certainly, making the system boards etc. easy to replace would seem to be an easier path than providing proper service (which they seem to have proven they don't do it well).  Certainly most photographers who color manage, etc these large format printers have the ability to change a circuit board (we do in our computers all the time).  Having now given this 8300 up as a loss, I've torn into it and must say it is NOT electro-mechanically robust.  The connectors on the circuit boards, caliber of the ribbon cables, etc. are clearly "Mickey Mouse".  Certainly seems like an opportunity for one of the manufacturers to rethink the current market and change the paradigm.  Robust, easily repaired printers competing on reliability instead of dot count or droplet size ... what a concept.  (Still can't kill my Leica M6 or Hasselbald 203FCC no matter how much I abuse them... wish my digital versions were even half as durable ... I must be getting old)!  Its also amazing that I can get great data on the reliability of a $500 washing machine, but no "Consumer Report" type data available for a $5000 printer.

[enduser]

Sniffing around the Web, it seems that the Japanese Tsunami in the Fukushima District caused a lot of manufacturing industry to temporarily re-locate. This had an effect on Canon and the 8300 suffered some manufacturing difficulties as a result - or so it seems.

The 8300 does seem to come up more frequently that other models so far as electrical problems go. Another story is that the 8300 was a model that was not made in Japan and early machines were subject to some settling-in difficulties in the  new factory. 

This what I've read, but who knows?

[Richard.Wills]

Certainly, making the system boards etc. easy to replace would seem to be an easier path than providing proper service (which they seem to have proven they don't do it well).  Certainly most photographers who color manage, etc these large format printers have the ability to change a circuit board (we do in our computers all the time).  Having now given this 8300 up as a loss, I've torn into it and must say it is NOT electro-mechanically robust.  The connectors on the circuit boards, caliber of the ribbon cables, etc. are clearly "Mickey Mouse".  Certainly seems like an opportunity for one of the manufacturers to rethink the current market and change the paradigm.  Robust, easily repaired printers competing on reliability instead of dot count or droplet size ... what a concept. 

I think you could be onto something there - my understanding is that the Roland printers are build around Epson solvent engines, but with a view to being open to routine line maintenance by the user or the tech of their choice. Obviously much more expensive machines, but I'd pay a premium for kit that wasn't just backed up by plug and prey service solutions.

Annoyingly, our new 8400 came with a set of half carts, rather than the full bottles I think we got with the 8300 (at least that's what come through in the UK, where we never see the lovely discounts that the left-ponders seem to get...)

Ho hum, new machine is happily chomping through paper next to me, so can't complain too much (Just enough).

[deanwork]

Yes I have heard this also, that the historic massive earthquake and tsunami disrupted Canon's manufacturing line and had to be relocated causing some qc problems. Maybe this is why when I had a couple of defective heads that were actually already out of warranty they sent me two new ones free overnight with no hesitation. I've had no problems since.

My 8300 came with the smaller ink carts.

john

Sniffing around the Web, it seems that the Japanese Tsunami in the Fukushima District caused a lot of manufacturing industry to temporarily re-locate. This had an effect on Canon and the 8300 suffered some manufacturing difficulties as a result - or so it seems.

[samueljohnchia]

Sniffing around the Web, it seems that the Japanese Tsunami in the Fukushima District caused a lot of manufacturing industry to temporarily re-locate. This had an effect on Canon and the 8300 suffered some manufacturing difficulties as a result - or so it seems.

Are your iPF8300s made in Japan? Or China?

My iPF8400 is made in China. The workmanship is horrific. The plastic chassis is warped, the pinch rollers are scratch and do not have the axles running through the middle so they wobble from side to side as they roll over paper. The spring tension of the rollers are also far too great and they mark all but the stiffest and densest of paper.

I too have had the most horrific service from Canon Singapore. The technician literally told me you are not important, I have to service a $500, 000 printer; I will see you next week. And then they took 2 and 1/2 months (!) to come down to look at the machine and evaluate the issues even after I begged and begged them.

If you can't get service for your large format printer, it doesn't matter which brand you've got. You're smoked.

[enduser]

I'm sure country of origin is important.  When Volkswagen set up a car plant in South Africa, they had to send a full engineering team down to rectify quality issues.

When I recently bought a Canon DSLR I was told to buy the execrably named "Kiss" model, as it's made in Japan for picky Japanese customers.

[deanwork]

I just checked again and my 8300 is made in Japan. There is nothing warped or poorly made that I've experienced here. My online support so far from Canon has been stellar and way beyond what I ever got from Epson or HP by a long shot. I call and I'm talking to a real tech person the first time who knows the machine inside and out and haven't had to wait to talk to him more than one minute ( even when out of warranty). I've had two head problems like I said when out of warranty and they don't charge me anything for the call, and nothing for the parts sent overnight. They even set a tech guy out here the next day for free to make sure everything was functioning correctly and I was a year out of warranty.

I guess where you live and where the printer was made has a huge difference. Maybe next time they will be horrible, but I've only experienced total professionalism and even generosity so far.

John

Are your iPF8300s made in Japan? Or China?

My iPF8400 is made in China. The workmanship is horrific. The plastic chassis is warped, the pinch rollers are scratch and do not have the axles running through the middle so they wobble from side to side as they roll over paper. The spring tension of the rollers are also far too great and they mark all but the stiffest and densest of paper.

I too have had the most horrific service from Canon Singapore. The technician literally told me you are not important, I have to service a $500, 000 printer; I will see you next week. And then they took 2 and 1/2 months (!) to come down to look at the machine and evaluate the issues even after I begged and begged them.

If you can't get service for your large format printer, it doesn't matter which brand you've got. You're smoked.

[Mike Raub]

I recently hauled a lightly used Canon 6300 to the recycling yard after it developed electrical problems which would have cost more to diagnose and fix than the printer was worth. The print quality of the photo quality printers has gotten so good that I doubt significant further improvements are possible. Canon and Epson (and HP if they are really still in this market) need to shift their focus to reliability and easy field diagnosis and repair. Looking back, I guess I ought not be surprised.  I paid less than $2000 for a 24" printer which, after looking at the service manual, I realized was an amazingly complex device. I doubt you can manufacture something that complex and sell it for $2000 without significant compromises in quality control and use of parts with high reliability expectations. I'd been better off paying $4000 for a printer that would last 10 years, not 2 1/2.