Taskalfa colour range general reliability tips and tricks ?

[knobby]

Thought i'd start a thread re: the genaral reliability of these beasts! ( or the lack of)
I have 9 of these in my area and 2 trained techs
the south area has about 15 and NO trained techs

our machines are no better than theirs so we can count out training.

Problems range from wandering colour reg, poor density, print driver issues, slow printing, noises, error codes ( not in the manual) mailboxes keep going ofline, invalid user codes ( but they are).

As much as i am growing to dislike this product i thought it would be nice to have a sort of "positive" thread with tips and tricks to improve all our collective knowledge

What do you think ?

Heres hoping

[charly]

many of problem that comment are solved with last update (Firmware Version 09.01.0010),the noises, not of course.

[aragul]

There's been a lot of info from the Webinars and Tech Bulletins. Here are some highlights:
Before doing anything, upgrade the firmware.
Never unplug or plug in the DP connectors while the machine is on.

Maintenance modes to run after replacing stuff: (Nov 09)
Drum - U119, clear U930, U464 AC Calib
Dev - U464 AC Calib
Secondary Transfer Roller - clear U127
Fuser - clear U167

Basic Image Adjustment - to be done after replacing dev, drum, etc.
Color Calibration
Color Registration
U412 (only if you replace a drum)
U410

If you still have color donuts: (Mar 10)
U140 Dev Roll2 Duty: Change from 373 to 317 for all colors
Turn the Main Switch Off/On
U464 AC Calibration Magnification: Change from 0 to ‐5
U464 AC Calibration: Run Calibration

Light prints or background issues:
Undo whatever settings you changed before to try to fix this.
U325 Set paper interval MODE1(Default) to MODE4.
U059 Set Fan Mode MODE2(Default) to MODE3.
DV refresh in the System menu.
Color Calibration in the System menu.
U410 Half tone Auto Adjust.
U464 PrintRate(B/W) 50(Default) to 100. (If printing 85% or greater B/W)

(Jul 09)
In U131, if Control exceeds Default by 25, replace dev unit

Tech Bulletin summaries:
2 - CIS cable connector protector
3 - Drawer heater
4 - Job Separator installation warnings
5 - Prevent the transfer belt from tearing by moving mylars on the black dev unit
6 - Motor failure
7 - Pantone

Service Bulletin 9053 describes how to clean the LSU cleaner eccentric cams. If they get dirty, you'll hear some funky noise whenever it cleans the LSU glass (at startup or through Adjust/Maint.).

If you get a bunch of J60s, the duplex switch actuator may be sticking. Try not to have too much fun spending an hour just to get to the switch.

Always pop out the transfer belt before taking any drum or dev units out.

[knobby]

Cheers Aragul
just the kind of post that will make this thread useful

[cmpelser]

Any of you guys having toner issues with these machines.
Where the toner guages "lie" i.e toner guage disappears or it says 50% left but is empty? Or vice versa. Or a new black toner lasts for about 500 copies. This is costing our company a lot of money and is a big problem!

[dickierock]

definitley go with the firmware,seemed to have cleared up a few issues for me,
cmpelser,,i had a customer say the machine seems to be saying adding toner quite a lot,does this sound anything like your problem with the toners?

[cmpelser]

Yes that too! As well as what i've mentioned above. Hopefully the new firmware will stop this problem. It's got version 7.something and the new firmware i've downloaded is version 9.something.

[dickierock]

sorry to be the bearer of bad news but this issue was brought to my attention after the latest firmware update,the customer said it to me a few weeks later in passing,,i said i'd look into it,havn't really found anything else about it yet..

[blackcat4866]

The TASKalfa does not like to jump from firmware 6.0 or 7.0, to 9.0

Be sure to upgrade through all the levels as you go or you'll be plagued by cfxxx codes. And yes, I know it takes 45 minutes for each level. =^..^=

[cmpelser]

I'm back at my customer now... and it's saying add tonner A LOT!!! Prints a few pages... adding toner..... prints a few..... adding toner... I've upgraded to the latest ver. 9.something 3 days ago.