KM-4230 and F-4330 Maintenance Menu and IR sensor

[Marcudemus]

Howdy everybody, this may be a lengthy post, but I believe in full disclosure when it comes to technical problems :P

I've got a Kyocera KM-4230 copy machine attached to an F-4330 finisher.

My problem with the Maintenance Menu:
The Maintenance Menu has been a ton of help in diagnosing problems and making other changes to the settings (don't worry, I haven't been too overzealous in there).

In the F-4330's Service Manual, it shows maintenance menu items specific to the finisher. Items U240, U241, and U330 are the maintenance menu items listed in the service manual.

However, when I hit "10871087" on the copy machine's keypad to enter the Maintenance Menu (with the finisher connected), menu options U240 and U241 don't appear.

Why I'm trying to get those specific menu items:
The reason I'm trying to get to these menu items is because I need to see the status of the "Tray Stock Sensor A (TSSA)", as the service manual calls it. In the Parts List, it's called the "Rear Stack Sensor" (Part# 3AK28020). I also have it on good authority that that model of sensor may have been replaced by Part#3AK01040.

This sensor is an IR receiver, placed on the back side of the finisher, to the left of the movable eject tray. It senses an IR beam shot across the top of the tray from an emitter placed on the other side of the tray, at the front of the finisher. The emitter always emits an IR beam, and when the receiver sees that the beam is blocked (presumably by paper being ejected), it tells the main PCB to lower the tray an appropriate amount.

What happens for me, is that when the tray would normally jog down about a half-inch and then come back to it's upper position just before pages start ejecting, the tray just goes down and doesn't stop until it hits the bottom, and then the touchscreen tells me that the ejection tray is filled with paper and that I need to remove the paper.

I've verified that the IR emitter is working by looking at it through a cell phone's camera (try it sometime!). After seeing through the cell phone camera that the IR emitter is continuously lit up, I thus deduce that the IR receiver is bad, but I can't verify that because I can't get to the Maintenance Mode Menu U241 to display that sensor's status!

Help!

Thanks!!

[blackcat4866]

Good News!
Well, sort of good news. You're not crazy. I looked in the RI-4230 manual and there is no U240 or U241 maintenance mode. For the finisher there is U248 to make adjustments, but there is no sensor test for the finisher.

You'll just have to do it the old fashioned way. Find the receiver (usually three pins) and meter the various combination of outputs. The output that you are looking for will be ~0.3 vdc low and ~3.8 vdc high (or blocked and unblocked). Does that help? =^..^=

[Marcudemus]

blackcat, I hope you're still alive after this almost 1-year hiatus! :P

Sorry for the wait, which I'm sure was suspenseful, of course, but yes, your information helped a huge amount!!
I was able to find a place that could order a replacement IR emitter and receiver, and upon replacing the emitter, I found out that while it appeared brighter on the camera phone, it still didn't fix the issue. I then replaced the receiver, and the tray finally returned to normal operation! They might have both been bad, but either way, the tray doesn't drop to the floor every time I turn the machine on! :P

Thanks for your help, blackcat!