Kip 3100 Image Fault

[blackcat4866]

Here are the pix:

Image fault left-Original right.JPGMag roller1.JPGMag roller2.JPG

It's got the trademark diagonal voids of a developing issue, yet I've got complete mag roller coverage. After a few rotations of the mag roller I noticed matching patterns on the mag roller in a slightly darker toner which I'm guessing is wrong toner. If it were wrong toner (dual component rather than monocomponent) it would not develop the charged image. There are only 340K ft2 on the machine, so I cannot imagine it having a mechanical issue. Has anybody seen a wrong toner issue on a Kip, and does it look like this? Or something else?

[Mr Spock]

Has the developer rollers every been changed? The should be replaced every 160k. Otherwise vacuum the dv unit out completely and start over and see if it returns.

[blackcat4866]

It's a refurb so there's no way of knowing what parts have been changed. That was my plan, to vacuum out the unit and refill it with known OEM toner.

Is the blade, and the foam roller inside the unit also 160K yield? Any other maintenance items in the developing unit? The spacers look good. =^..^=

[blackcat4866]

Just following up:

It was wrong toner. Dual component toner does not develop the latent image on the drum, it only takes up the space that could be occupied by monocomponent toner on the developing roller.

I had incorrectly assumed that the developing unit would refill on it's own, given enough time. It might have, but I would have expired of old age by the time that happened. After the fact, I read the section of the manual describing pouring in the 500gm bottle of starter toner. So I twisted in a 300gm tube of toner easily enough, then started running prints. It took 50 prints to get the toner migrated all the way around the developing roller, and giving good coverage.

Being unsure exactly how much toner a 40" developing unit might hold, I ordered 4 tubes. It consumed 1 and 3/4 of another. It's still adding toner, but its adding faster than it's being consumed, so the developing unit will fill soon.

I'm not even going to speculate how dual component toner got in the developing unit.
=^..^=

[blackcat4866]

Damn. It's back.

I've ordered the developer maintenance kit. We'll see what comes in the package.
It takes 2 full toner cartridges to re-charge the developing unit, but this time I won't have to vacuum it all up. I can recover a large portion of it.
=^..^=

[blackcat4866]

Hy-uge improvement. Even the secondary quality issue was resolved. On some of the images I saw a repetitive shadow of the previous image, like you might get from a too-hot fuser. I suspect that the developer bias was gradually incremented to it's highest setting, and the shadow image was residual toner not cleaned off of the drum.

I especially enjoyed the last part of the procedure where you snug up the brackets that maintain the pressure from the top roller:
44) turn left screw 1/4 turn
45) turn right screw 1/4 turn
46) turn left screw 1/4 turn
47) turn right screw 1/4 turn
48) turn left screw 1/4 turn
49) turn ...

=^..^=