250ci/300ci/400ci Opinions?

[mrfuser]

I have a client with a lot of the TASKalfa 250-300-400ci units. Any thoughts on servicing them? Good units? Danger signs?


Thanks

Kelly

[Scott]

I have a client with a lot of the TASKalfa 250-300-400ci units. Any thoughts on servicing them? Good units? Danger signs?


Thanks

Kelly

They are not the greatest, they blow out DV units and transfer belt regularly

[Zackuth]

I don't like these machines. As said above, developers and transfer belts go out rather quickly and I'd add drums to that list as well. Very rarely will any of the three make it to the end of its maintanence cycle.

[darry1322]

Not that bad once you get completely updated on parts and firmware.

We had one tech apply updated dev unit with updated firmware. Spent half of a day trying to "fix" the rattling noise it sometimes made.

[Kyo fan]

First edition of those had many problems, and I personally learned to swear on multiple foreign languages going thru all those fixes. The most annoying thing for me were drum pinholes. As others said, once you apply most of the updates and fixes, they are ok. Fuser units are the most resilient part on them, never seen it fail before 300k. If you plan on rolling with those, make sure they have the latest firmware. Also, depending on the service history of each, stock some drum units, dev units, transfer belts, developing and cleaning motors. All those mentioned parts have been updated and are working as intended.

In my experience, i've had less calls on those under heavier load, rather than those just doing few pages daily. Print quality is average, and toner yield is rather satisfying.

[JVergin]

Not that bad once you get completely updated on parts and firmware.

Agreed! If the modifications aren't done, you'll have customers complaining of:

1) Faint prints or asks for new toner but doesn't recognize new toner - Replace developer unit with modified version.
2) J30 jams constantly - Transfer belt shredded itselt and is seized up, replace it with modified version.
3) J50 or J51 first print of the day, fine afterwards - They modified a roller in the job separator unit to fix this.
4) speckles on prints - look closely, you'll find the patterns repeat. Replace the drum(s) with modified version.
5) jamming right after fuser - need to look at the gate right after the fuser unit. There's probably a ton of toner buildup that the paper is running into.

Anything else I'm missing? We've been replacing these pretty quick and all of ours have the mods/latest firmware.

[Tebow83]

As said above, these machines eat parts.
The newer versions are much better.

[tcook]

Have never seen them make it to a pm. Color dv units dust up and needs cleaned every 50k or so. Especially if they don't do much color. Cost per page is much higher than stated.

[Rvale]

my experience with them tells me to never turn them off, never let it do a cold start as Long as you can, cold drums means usualy the random spots wich dont realy make sense for me, Primary Charge with rollers is not something new but Kyo. doesnt seems to know exactly what they are doing with it, so never let them cool down, refresh the developer as soon as it get the spots(even knowing that it will warn out the Image set faster) and System update as soon as it is available.
good luck with them, you will eventually need it.