C-364e, ran out of Cyan and burned out Developer Unit..

[Oystercopy]

Hey Guys,

I would like to know how many of you have had machines STARVE their Developer Units for toner and eventually destroy that corresponding developer unit? I've had this happen a couple of times now, and replacing those DV units (especially the color ones) can be expensive. I've gone through the toner hoppers to see if there might have been a clog, but was not able to find anything obvious in the hoppers to make me think they were at fault for starving the DV units... My understanding is that it could be a bad HVT board as well, but tried this on another machine with this issue and it didn't fix it either.. funny thing is, the machine NEVER CALLS for toner, so I'm wondering what the heck is going on? It just ends up starving the DV unit and you get the typical banding when the developer runs out.... strange.

Thanks in advance!
OC

[copyman]

Drums way over life will short out causing developer units to crash. Most of time you will get diagonal lines because developer is low. Thank goodness when it shorts out the developer goes into the waste box and doesn't dump into machine. You may also feel dev grit on paper.

[blackcat4866]

I had a customer with a C364e that printed solid ledger pages of pantone color 3155 (C: 100, M: 13, Y: 0, K: 53). You might be surprised (or not) that this customer experienced "An internal error has occurred." It will reset by itself. If you were to look at the management list you would see pages and pages of "C2551" errors (cyan toner density errors).

I did some experimentation, and discovered that 12 consecutive ledger pages of this color depleted the cyan developer, "An internal error has occurred.", and then it idled for 7 minutes trying to tone back up. The machine dumps the job. You never see an add toner condition. After a few weeks of this the cyan developer fails, and you can install another cyan developer unit.

A measure that you can take is to increase the base toner density of from 6.5% to 8.0%. That increases the number of pages from 12 to 17 ledger pages before the exact same thing happens.

IMHO this machine just is not able to add toner fast enough to maintain developer density in this circumstance. On my last visit there i suggested printing 10 or less pages consecutively, then let is run for 6 minutes to tone back up. If your customer really wants this much toner coverage they need a Press.
=^..^=

[Synaux]

I had a customer with a C364e that printed solid ledger pages of pantone color 3155 (C: 100, M: 13, Y: 0, K: 53). You might be surprised (or not) that this customer experienced "An internal error has occurred." It will reset by itself. If you were to look at the management list you would see pages and pages of "C2551" errors (cyan toner density errors).

I did some experimentation, and discovered that 12 consecutive ledger pages of this color depleted the cyan developer, "An internal error has occurred.", and then it idled for 7 minutes trying to tone back up. The machine dumps the job. You never see an add toner condition. After a few weeks of this the cyan developer fails, and you can install another cyan developer unit.

A measure that you can take is to increase the base toner density of from 6.5% to 8.0%. That increases the number of pages from 12 to 17 ledger pages before the exact same thing happens.

IMHO this machine just is not able to add toner fast enough to maintain developer density in this circumstance. On my last visit there i suggested printing 10 or less pages consecutively, then let is run for 6 minutes to tone back up. If your customer really wants this much toner coverage they need a Press.
=^..^=

Maybe "TCR Level Setting" could help?

I wonder if the hoppers are being depleted. If so, perform the manual toner add in Image Adjust (SM says max only 3 times, but I haven't seen any problems doing this up to 6x times to fill up hopper to the top). Also, simply opening and closing the toner door engages the toner drive motors to run a cycle. The CX60's were terrible with this in my experience--their toner drives gears would also fail a lot too. I was very happy to see the new design on the CX54's.
If the customer is not a total ass, tell them (ask them kindy and of course show them how) to monitor the hopper especially before, during and after very large coverage jobs for a little while?

[tsbservice]

There are two main possibilities - HV board and parts over their life, may not be this exact dev unit related.
Check to see in SM for any abnormal grid and bias voltages, when parts are over life machine is attempting to compensate with HV adjustments and do over-compensate. Replace parts over their life, clean IDC sensors and run Stabilization.
There was Tech note explanation for that type of problems over there, later if find it will post here.

Best of luck
tsb

[allan]

I had a customer with a C364e that printed solid ledger pages of pantone color 3155 (C: 100, M: 13, Y: 0, K: 53). You might be surprised (or not) that this customer experienced "An internal error has occurred." It will reset by itself. If you were to look at the management list you would see pages and pages of "C2551" errors (cyan toner density errors).

I did some experimentation, and discovered that 12 consecutive ledger pages of this color depleted the cyan developer, "An internal error has occurred.", and then it idled for 7 minutes trying to tone back up. The machine dumps the job. You never see an add toner condition. After a few weeks of this the cyan developer fails, and you can install another cyan developer unit.

A measure that you can take is to increase the base toner density of from 6.5% to 8.0%. That increases the number of pages from 12 to 17 ledger pages before the exact same thing happens.

IMHO this machine just is not able to add toner fast enough to maintain developer density in this circumstance. On my last visit there i suggested printing 10 or less pages consecutively, then let is run for 6 minutes to tone back up. If your customer really wants this much toner coverage they need a Press.
=^..^=

With my experience converting K dev tanks to color there is no issue for the machine keeping up with toner supply.
To change a K unit to cyan it will up to 300 full tone solid prints to get the dev tank to flush the K toner out. First and last page looks perfect with no errors.
In the case where you get the error C255x there must be something wrong with the dev tank were the dev could be low or the toner supply is faulty somewhere.

Where the dev disappears i found some corrosion on the charge grid.
Super important to not let the drum units go past life with out resetting it or drum charge will continue to go up and up.
Wish i could measure those voltages with the units installed.

[copier tech]

With my experience converting K dev tanks to color there is no issue for the machine keeping up with toner supply.
To change a K unit to cyan it will up to 300 full tone solid prints to get the dev tank to flush the K toner out. First and last page looks perfect with no errors.
In the case where you get the error C255x there must be something wrong with the dev tank were the dev could be low or the toner supply is faulty somewhere.

Where the dev disappears i found some corrosion on the charge grid.
Super important to not let the drum units go past life with out resetting it or drum charge will continue to go up and up.
Wish i could measure those voltages with the units installed.

You can actually “top up” the dev unit with waste toner, the wt bottle contains a lot of developer, done this loads of times!

The official fix is to replace ANY unit when they reach life & NEVER use compatible toner!

Failure of Image Unit or Developer Unit.pdf

[REGSIS]

With my experience converting K dev tanks to color there is no issue for the machine keeping up with toner supply.
To change a K unit to cyan it will up to 300 full tone solid prints to get the dev tank to flush the K toner out. First and last page looks perfect with no errors.
In the case where you get the error C255x there must be something wrong with the dev tank were the dev could be low or the toner supply is faulty somewhere.

Where the dev disappears i found some corrosion on the charge grid.
Super important to not let the drum units go past life with out resetting it or drum charge will continue to go up and up.
Wish i could measure those voltages with the units installed.

50 is enough.

First rule: change the drum(s) OEM
For the customers with low coverages and no error code I successifuly let the machine regain normal level from toner bottle OEM. After 5000 clicks all was normal again.

For those with diagonal lines only - change the drums - after 1000 clicks developer will be like new again.
Original toner only!!!

[kingarthur]

Hey Guys,

I would like to know how many of you have had machines STARVE their Developer Units for toner and eventually destroy that corresponding developer unit? I've had this happen a couple of times now, and replacing those DV units (especially the color ones) can be expensive. I've gone through the toner hoppers to see if there might have been a clog, but was not able to find anything obvious in the hoppers to make me think they were at fault for starving the DV units... My understanding is that it could be a bad HVT board as well, but tried this on another machine with this issue and it didn't fix it either.. funny thing is, the machine NEVER CALLS for toner, so I'm wondering what the heck is going on? It just ends up starving the DV unit and you get the typical banding when the developer runs out.... strange.

Thanks in advance!
OC

We've had customers remove and shake the toner bottle, then refit it, the gauge goes back to 100%, if this is done often enough, you'll either get the C255* code or the dev unit will fail, which could be why the "machine never calls for toner"

[allan]

50 is enough.

First rule: change the drum(s) OEM
For the customers with low coverages and no error code I successifuly let the machine regain normal level from toner bottle OEM. After 5000 clicks all was normal again.

For those with diagonal lines only - change the drums - after 1000 clicks developer will be like new again.
Original toner only!!!

After some halftones i remove the tank and tap it with the handle of my screwdriver to get the toner stuck on the inner walls of the tank to loosen.
Then starting again it full of black streaks again. Rather over do it then get called back.