Companies are putting more emphasis on IT experience than real tech experience. I find most IT people just google everything and they end up here. The days of old time techs is coming to an end. Old fashion troubleshooting is winding down.........
Guys, I've been a copier tech since 1968. 50 years now. I'm finding it harder and harder to remember every little thing, or even where to find it in the manual. Our company encourages us to ask questions. In fact, so does our manufacturer...Ricoh. Case in point, I'm working a few weeks ago on a machine that is showing an SC code that I am not familiar with. All documentation is on our laptops. No book manuals available. My laptop is in the car, which is parked a hundred yards away. But I have two faster ways to find out what the code is. Ricoh recently opened a TEXT number for us to send a quick TEXT message to for a quick simple answer. All I have to do is send a TEXT to the number with the model number and the SC code. They provided the answer within 5 minutes by return TEXT. The number is only available to authorized dealers. Our company also uses an APP program called "SLACK". It's on our Smart phones, and it instantly connects all of our technician to each other. If I have a unique problem and need some help with it, I just ask the question in SLACK and it is instantly broadcast to all company techs. I will generally get a response within a minute or two. Both save time and money for our company.
Copiers these days are very complex. And so is Networking. I don't know how the younger newer fellows are going to learn all of this stuff. I know I could not do it again.
The copier tech description has changed over the years from electro/mechanic to electro/mechanic/computer tech. The computer tech part of this is what creates laziness as well as the individual. Make that lazy technician fix a Sharp SF-741 with broken drum hubs with only a manual and no other help, that will straighten them out, haha!
When I started servicing copiers they used toaster ovens for fusers.....I'm old
Lol. Oh boy I remember those SF-741 master clamp jams. And unfortunately thinking back I remember taking a 741 drum out a few times. Showing my age to say I went to factory school for the 741. Never forgot a factory Jap rep addressed the class saying the 741 was going to be the copier future ha-ha! For those of you who don't know Sharp tried a few low volume models that used masters. Master only lasted "600" pages then had to be changed, by the end user! Sharp ended up designing a machine that the master lasted 8k pages and changed by the tech, the sharp 750, 755, 756. The 755 & 756 were decent machines. I made a lot of $$$ on installing PM kits everything 8K !!!
Last edited by copyman; 09-03-2017 at 12:18 AM.
There was a time back in the day, when a technician could go to a service call, look at the machine and know for sure what was wrong with it. He could order a part, install it, and leave the office knowing for sure that he fixed the problem. Not any longer! Now days you can't see what is going on inside of the machines.
I can remember opening the front doors, installing cheaters on the interlocks, pulling up a chair in front on the machine, and watching the paper as it makes its way the four feet from one end of the machine to the other. On the way, it would get lifted by motors, fluffed by air pressure, sucked by vacuum, registered by fingers, electrocuted by a corona, squeezed by a 18 inch long heat and pressure roller that was almost 4 inches in diameter, made of steel and coated with Teflon. Then moved up the "C" transport, (yes, there was also an "A" and a "B" transport as well), where it was again shocked by extremely high voltage before it could fall in the paper tray hanging on the left side. And all of this machinery was powered by no less that 220 VAC and packed in a container weighing 1,500 pounds. After all of that, that 81/2 X 11 inch paper (it wouldn't do any other size) would normally come out of the left side with toner on it that had a strange resemblance of something a customer could actually read. That toner was arrange on a drum coated with selenium by a 50 pound developer housing filled with 25 pounds of micro steel shot ball bearings that cascaded onto the drum by gravity. The drum was a foot in diameter, had two large flanges on each end and was held on by a "Lug nut" that looked more like it belonged on an 18 wheeler truck instead of a copy machine.
The worst part was, that on occasion the paper would catch fire. Which in turn would cause the machine to discharge its very own internal Co2 fire extinguisher. And that was after they started putting the extinguishers inside of the machines instead of just hanging them on the frame under the machine. The customer was required to activate that extinguisher when they saw smoke coming from the back fan. The problem was, that when the smoke filled the room, all of the people exited the room in a panic, and it was up to the Fire Department to pry open the copier's doors, cause nobody could find the special key (CAT5) to unlock the doors.
Oh how I miss the good old days!
Customers are also requiring more IT from techs than just technical expertise. Quite a few times I was asked to troubleshoot a scanning to network or e-mail problem. All I could do was go get my mini network, laptop, router, and cables and set the ip address to match the printer and disconnect from their network. Then print scan and do everything with my laptop. If it worked (only had one network card fail this test procedure) then I unplugged my equipment and plugged theirs back in and tried it again with their computer operator doing the test prints and scans. I usually would insist that someone from their computer office if onsite be there when I did this. Then I would show them my settings, print them out and let them go back and troubleshoot their network.
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