Task Alfa 250-500ci Developer units

**Xferunit** · 11-12-2014

So I'm sure we've all noticed that the developers on these models don't generally last to their advertised "end-life", but I've noticed that our customers who don't do much color printing are having a much higher fail rate. Just in the last 4 months or so I've seen three machines with less than 5,000 color pages on them, have multiple color developers that put out blank U89 Greyscales.

So, my question is this. Failing a developer refresh, and removing the unit and rotating manually by hand (which I've seen work temporarily a handful of times.), is there any way to get these units going again? My boss is tired of buying new ones, and is hoping there's a way to bring them back to life.

Thanks.

**Kyo fan** · 11-12-2014

Generally I've had more issues with drum units on these series (the famous dots and holes ftw). Developer units weren't so good, but in my case, they lasted for at least 100k. Those 5k you are mentioning is way too low. The blank greyscales you are having could also very well happen due to developer and cleaning motors, especially if you have older, like 2009 models.

This is the bulletin you have to check: TaskAlfa motors.pdf Replacing these helped me in several occasions when colors were poor, and nothing else did the trick.

**blackcat4866** · 11-13-2014

I've had some success with this method.

One of my customers was doing literally 5k color to 100k monochrome. Every time the customer attempted to make one of those rare color prints, the color developer was dead. I suggested that once a week the enduser run developer refresh, and demonstrated the keystrokes. As a side-note: after 50k it took 7 times developer refresh to bring back the developer. If it had been any longer it just wouldn't have come back from blank. =^..^=

**Xferunit** · 11-13-2014

That is precisely the case here, Blackcat. This client has 130k BW, to 2.7k color. From what you're saying, it sounds like excessive dev refreshes won't help at that point. Just need a new unit. Thanks for the tip though. I'll try refreshing devs 5+ times in the future, if it seems like the right circumstances.

**blackcat4866** · 11-13-2014

You'll know if it's too late. Once you get it to start adding toner sometimes it just won't stop. After a few color prints it will start to dump cyan (choose your own color here) toner like it was going out of style. =^..^=

**thefinisher** · 01-07-2015

Originally Posted by Xferunit

That is precisely the case here, Blackcat. This client has 130k BW, to 2.7k color. From what you're saying, it sounds like excessive dev refreshes won't help at that point. Just need a new unit. Thanks for the tip though. I'll try refreshing devs 5+ times in the future, if it seems like the right circumstances.

The problem is the ratio between color and K. There is a customware for this problem, including some fine adjustmemts and it works fine. 5 months later and no problems at all.

**habik** · 01-07-2015

Originally Posted by thefinisher

The problem is the ratio between color and K. There is a customware for this problem, including some fine adjustmemts and it works fine. 5 months later and no problems at all.

Would you be so kind and share the FW version?
or is it fully Third Party firmware?