Anyone using a Minolta bizhub c500?

[Pointyhat]

We had a tech in yesterday and the color is now attrocious. The last tech who knew wtf he was doing left me some instructions of calibrating using the kodak strip and the Fiery workstation 4. Trying to get into Server>manage color and I get these dialogs that say
Java/C++ with an X and below that Java!-3 with an ok below it. I can't get past this screen. Anyone have any clue? (It's a WinXP box) Is there something I need to load? The fucking tech has decided that it's our monitors and left us hanging today with no printer to work from.

[Joe]

We had a tech in yesterday and the color is now attrocious. The last tech who knew wtf he was doing left me some instructions of calibrating using the kodak strip and the Fiery workstation 4. Trying to get into Server>manage color and I get these dialogs that say
Java/C++ with an X and below that Java!-3 with an ok below it. I can't get past this screen. Anyone have any clue? (It's a WinXP box) Is there something I need to load? The fucking tech has decided that it's our monitors and left us hanging today with no printer to work from.

I've never used that printer but I have crap like that all the time with XP and maybe you've already tried it but I would turn off the PC, not re-start but shut down, then turn off the printer. Let them both sit idle for about two minutes. Then turn on the printer and then start up the XP PC. Fire it up and see if it's any better. Oh, and what exactly was the tech there to do?

[Pointyhat]

We had horrible density.
I'll scan in and show you what he fucking did later on.

[Chilbear]

My last location I used the C500 there. Inconsistent is an understatement.

The Fiery is the issue I think as the colour would change DURING the run. The best they could suggest was to add a humidifier to the area. The intense heat they figured, was causing the toner to do something. I said BS as I could not get it to print a consistent job ever. The rep was really good and it was nice for a period then back to all over the place. The humidifier helped the static and the lay down (density issue) was better as the toner seemed to not clump they figured.

Look into cooling and humidifying the area up to 50% if possible. It helped but the machine is a loser unless "good enough" color is your bag. This is why the tech thinks it is fine - if the color is set when hot and dry, the setting changes during runs and voila the color goes out.

[kermit]

I didn't use it myself but I heard bad things about it and I agree with Chilbear here. It's very inconsistent.

[Pointyhat]

My last location I used the C500 there. Inconsistent is an understatement.

The Fiery is the issue I think as the colour would change DURING the run. The best they could suggest was to add a humidifier to the area. The intense heat they figured, was causing the toner to do something. I said BS as I could not get it to print a consistent job ever. The rep was really good and it was nice for a period then back to all over the place. The humidifier helped the static and the lay down (density issue) was better as the toner seemed to not clump they figured.

Look into cooling and humidifying the area up to 50% if possible. It helped but the machine is a loser unless "good enough" color is your bag. This is why the tech thinks it is fine - if the color is set when hot and dry, the setting changes during runs and voila the color goes out.

When things calm down I'll scan in some of the crap that we printed in the last two days, you guys will die. Seriously, I'm sitting here thinking, this is it, we're screwed and the shop will have to close.
The techs will be back tomorrow and this is the BEST PART! They DON'T know how to calibrate useing the Kodak strip/Fiery EFI. Thank god I wrote down every word the last tech told me, I just can't find the calibration page.
Thanks for all the replies guys, I really appreciate it.

[prepressDog]

Pointy....I've had the same issues with cal through Fiery CWS.
I would have lock-up issues, etc. doing it the way your talking about.

If you got to the "print" (gray button left of "scan" & "copy") button on the c500, you can scroll down past "reboot server, etc." till you get to calibration. Go that way...It will ask do you want to print measurement page, yes, line screen, yes,
It will print...lay your grayscale down (you must center this on the measurement page, about .25" in from the top left of the glass) Lay down cal measurement page.  Then it will ask if you want to scan page, yes.
Scan...It will ask to overwrite cal., yes, effect all users, yes. Done.

You must do this a few times a day to hold any type of color. It is a PAIN...I've battled this bitch for a few years.
All the issues above...most of the techs suck. Ours/we have found a bal.

Also, most important....go to the help "?" button..."key op mode" hit the arrow to the end.
Got to exc. adjustments.  Hit all 4 buttons "Belt refresh", toner refresh, etc. Back out "prev screen" the whole way.
You will hear it go to adjustments. (have your tech turn off auto adj in machine (if they know how)....do it this way...you will hold color better through the run. Do this between most runs if color gets off...It will bring it back.

Hope this helps....Again, it's a real bitch till you get this cycle down and have Good techs. (Do it every AM before you start)
I feel your pain. 

[Pointyhat]

The belt, toner refresh etc, I do all the time. We finally got the color back on track but I was really scared there for a bit. Pretty sure we were going to shut our doors due to a fucking techs screw-up.