RP3700 - Machine mistakenly reporting masters on the drum A04-304... and more.

[benjaminography]

Hello! HELP!

This has been an ongoing problem for a while, but has reached a critical point where our RP3700 is now unusable.

Just for some context - I use the machine with a friend once every 3-6months to print a few hundred comics. Each time we use it something usually breaks, but each time we figure it out. Its certainly part of the fun of having the machine. This problem is beyond me.

So over the last year, we've been getting increasing A04-304 errors -

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Contrary to the error message, the master is never on the drum - and we usually have to reset the machine, and manually apply an old master to the drum to fool the machine into restarting the process of applying a master. It's always been a problem, but it used to be rare, now its all the time.

This has been compounded with the disposed masters not making it into the master disposal tray - and often getting stuck in this area.

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We found that removing these old masters by hand each time we were making a new master, reduced the likelyhood of the error message, and things ran pretty smoothly. Until last week.

I opened the hood of the machine, and a broken band was resting on the bar above the drum (its the bar at the bottom of the above image that has a sensor attached.) Now all we get is the A04-304 error. It's removing the masters, and winding them up into the wrong place.

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I have access to two other RP3700s - entirely intact despite being inoperable - so getting replacement parts is no problem.

My big queries -

• Where does this band go?
• Why is the machine not putting the masters in the disposal tray correctly?
• Why is it not recognising that there is no master on the drum?

Any help would be hugely appreciated!

[20gaugeO/U]

• Where does this band go? There are 4 there, you are missing 4 others
• Why is the machine not putting the masters in the disposal tray correctly? A04-304 is a disposal jam because you are missing 4 disposal belts
• Why is it not recognizing that there is no master on the drum? Because RP's just did that sometimes... over engineered. Clean the sensors that look down at the drum with alcohol but a lot of the time you just had to manually put a master on the drum to get it going
• 628-21521-004 disposal belt 2x152
• 628-20900-001 disposal belt 2x90
• Or find anything in the Z line that is much easier to work on. Riso's are made to run everyday, letting them sit for months without use is not a good idea. There's a reason you have access to 2 other 3700's users and techs wanted them gone as soon as they could.

Good luck

[benjaminography]

Blimey OK - I'll have a closer look at the other RPs and see where the replacement bands should be fitted.

I bought the machine with the best of intentions to print my own work - maybe I should just work harder to print more stuff!

Thanks for the reply!