IU Repair or Cleaning - Has anyone done this

[Golfnut27]

Has anyone been able to repair or clean an IU on the Color machines? Many times we are replacing an IU for streaks, etc, and it appears all it needs is the corona wire or grid to be cleaned. I have been informed by my tech's that we cannot repair the IU's. We need to be able to rebuild these IU in addition to re-chipping them.

[fixthecopier]

My shop has reset chips and fuses, but never rebuilt any. As sensitive as a color machine can be, I really do not want to go down the road of rebuilding them in the field. Someone else may have a different tale to tell about how easy it is and how much you can save, but I will keep it a that info to myself. Good Luck!

[Golfnut27]

I am not ready to rebuild the entire IU, but if the IU is causing streaks due to a dirty corona or grid, etc. I would like to be able to clean it and get more life out of the IU. We seem to have too many IU fail before the machine tells us to change them.

[fixthecopier]

From what I am seeing, premature IU failure on the newer color machines is not uncommon. I just walked over and checked a stack of newer used IU's from C200, 250 ect and half of the stack went less than 50%, some as low as 37%. If anyone needs a machine that does'nt eat IU's, go back to the 2002 and 3102. Oh by the way I have 2 each of those machines for sale and they are brand new.

[pepper38_cnd]

Are we talking about original units failing or a rechipped unit. On the C250/C252/C300 you will have a much better success rechipping if you rechip before it calls for the IU replacement. If you rechip after it calls for replacement you will be lucky to get another 3 weeks out of the unit.

[Golfnut27]

I would not be complaining if it was a re-chipped IU, my problem is with NEW IU's on the C252 and now I am having early failures on the c353. The customer is starting to get concerned with the image quality failing and wasted prints. Add'l. my labor is greatly increased over my calculations based on estimated life of comsumables. I am going to sit next to my technician and watch him dismantle an IU to learn all that is involved with this assembly. This failure rate cannot continue.

[pepper38_cnd]

Well I do not know about the US but here in Canada KonicaMinolta has been very good at honoring warranty claims on IU's provided they are under a year old and the minutes are reasonably low. Your service manager should submit a warranty claim on any ( All) failed IU's under a year old that have not reached 70% of the expected yield in minutes.

[fixthecopier]

All of our early failures are on new units also. Konica does back them up.

[redime]

Next time you have a crap one, try taking it apart...

The thing must be put together in some sorta jig at the factory, you need like 8 hands to be able to do it, and its not easy at all. And when you get it all back together, chances are you wont have actually fixed anything.

It is possible, just unlikely.

Was just at a 351 today, cyan was just replaced last service call and yellow and magenta were just about kicked -- yellow was banding and huge voids, magenta was fine in all the test charts. I drive to shop, drive back, throw in a yellow and chip magenta, and first set of CMYK gradations out, theres magenta toner all over the images, magenta crapped the bucket. So had to go back and get a new magenta.

[Golfnut27]

I am glad to hear we are not the only one running back and forth with IU's and then out of the blue one causes problems. This is exactly the problems and frustration with the color products.
The design of the Iu's has to be changed to allow us the ability to do basic cleaning. The additional labor because of a defective IU and the time and effort to track returns is very costly. I'll need to hire an add'l person to keep on top of this.