Paper in school machines

[Lagonda]

You must be a UK tech?

I'm with you on this one, its been quiet all summer no traffic on the roads, next week all hell breaks loose!

Half a life time ago when I had just started in this profession the company still had a lot of liquid copiers in schools. It took me a while to cotton on but all the old techs always took a weeks holiday the week school went back after the summer break.
The reason why? After sitting for 6 weeks locked up in a room that never got under 40 deg Celsius the liquid toner and developer had turned into super glue and the first time someone pressed the print button the cleaning blade ripped half the selenium coating off the drum. You then spent 2 hours trying to flood the drum shaft with fresh developer in an attempt to dissolve this clag so you could lever the drum out with a crow bar.
It didn't take me long to learn to apply in June for the first week of February off as holidays. Ah the good old days!!

[20 year tech]

Yep, that's the way it was coming out of the Lexmark last week. Old Army trick... store paper in a metal cabinet, get a trouble light, like you use to work on cars, and a 40 watt bulb. Makes a paper incubator. Keeps paper dry and crisp.

Kind of like an easy bake oven for paper lol

[Lance15]

This doesn't have to do with PAPER, but, active/wonky network jacks. Just found one today where you'd get link & activity, but, wouldn't get an IP (from DHCP), or accessible if static. Moved to another jack in the same room and it's fine. Crazy........

[gneebore]

This doesn't have to do with PAPER, but, active/wonky network jacks. Just found one today where you'd get link & activity, but, wouldn't get an IP (from DHCP), or accessible if static. Moved to another jack in the same room and it's fine. Crazy........

Had similar problem abiut 15 years ago. Three out of fifteen pcs wouldn't print to the copier. Their computer expert(offsite btw) explained it had to be the copier because the pcs were on the network and sending and receiving e-mails. Office manager would not accept from a mere copier tech and not a computer expert(me) that there had to be a network problem. I went out took my router, and cables unplugged their cables and set up mine to natch the ip address range of my laptop to that of the copier. Everything worked, scanning, printing. Unplugged my equipment and plugged their networking back in and tested with a "working pc" and everything worked there too. Went and used one of the problem machines and nope nothing. So I had the printout from the copier network settings and lo an behold they did not match the ip address range on the problem pc. Pointed that out to the office manager and explained that was the problem. Had her sign the ticket and left. Two days later got a call from the owner of my shop. I had to go back the office manager was convinced the copier was the problem and I had to figure something out. I get there and ask if I could move one of the problem pc;s and plug it in where a "working pc" was without turning off the working machine. We did and guess what the copier immediately printed what it was told to print from the problem pc. And I know it was printing from the problem machine because the page was a picture I found on the pc of the secretary's child. Set everything back where they were originally and just in case printed from the pc unplugged from the network and it worked fine. Left explaining this was a free call but any more network problems would be a charge since we did not cover network troubleshooting. Yes three days later we had an early morning conference with their computer guy me, my boss the office manager, and the owner of the business. Explained to the owner what was done and what was happening and mr computer expert flat out said since I was not network certified I did not know what I was talking about. Then the fun part. I went with everyone in tow into the little closet where the "router" for the three problem machines were networked. Turned it off and the three pc's. Unplugged the network input cable to the router and plugged it into one of the other plug sockets, Turned them all on and went and did printer driver test sheets from all three problem machines and they all worked, If you do that the router now acts as a switch instead of a router and the network dhcp addresses come from the network and not the router which is likely to assign it's own range to the output cable connections. Then I looked at the computer expert and said to him "next time use a switch instead of a router so the network assigns ip addresses instead of the router."

[slimslob]

This doesn't have to do with PAPER, but, active/wonky network jacks. Just found one today where you'd get link & activity, but, wouldn't get an IP (from DHCP), or accessible if static. Moved to another jack in the same room and it's fine. Crazy........

One other thing to watch for are machines that are where they touched by students. You never know what they might do. Had one in an attendance office that suddenly started throwing finisher exit jams. Looked in the exit area and saw something inside where there shouldn't be anything shiny. Got out my long forceps and pulled out a gun wrapper that had been setting on the exit sensor.

[ZOOTECH]

Had similar problem abiut 15 years ago. Three out of fifteen pcs wouldn't print to the copier. Their computer expert(offsite btw) explained it had to be the copier because the pcs were on the network and sending and receiving e-mails. Office manager would not accept from a mere copier tech and not a computer expert(me) that there had to be a network problem. I went out took my router, and cables unplugged their cables and set up mine to natch the ip address range of my laptop to that of the copier. Everything worked, scanning, printing. Unplugged my equipment and plugged their networking back in and tested with a "working pc" and everything worked there too. Went and used one of the problem machines and nope nothing. So I had the printout from the copier network settings and lo an behold they did not match the ip address range on the problem pc. Pointed that out to the office manager and explained that was the problem. Had her sign the ticket and left. Two days later got a call from the owner of my shop. I had to go back the office manager was convinced the copier was the problem and I had to figure something out. I get there and ask if I could move one of the problem pc;s and plug it in where a "working pc" was without turning off the working machine. We did and guess what the copier immediately printed what it was told to print from the problem pc. And I know it was printing from the problem machine because the page was a picture I found on the pc of the secretary's child. Set everything back where they were originally and just in case printed from the pc unplugged from the network and it worked fine. Left explaining this was a free call but any more network problems would be a charge since we did not cover network troubleshooting. Yes three days later we had an early morning conference with their computer guy me, my boss the office manager, and the owner of the business. Explained to the owner what was done and what was happening and mr computer expert flat out said since I was not network certified I did not know what I was talking about. Then the fun part. I went with everyone in tow into the little closet where the "router" for the three problem machines were networked. Turned it off and the three pc's. Unplugged the network input cable to the router and plugged it into one of the other plug sockets, Turned them all on and went and did printer driver test sheets from all three problem machines and they all worked, If you do that the router now acts as a switch instead of a router and the network dhcp addresses come from the network and not the router which is likely to assign it's own range to the output cable connections. Then I looked at the computer expert and said to him "next time use a switch instead of a router so the network assigns ip addresses instead of the router."

👏 👏 👏

[blackcat4866]

One other thing to watch for are machines that are where they touched by students. You never know what they might do. Had one in an attendance office that suddenly started throwing finisher exit jams. Looked in the exit area and saw something inside where there shouldn't be anything shiny. Got out my long forceps and pulled out a gun wrapper that had been setting on the exit sensor.

I'm pretty sure it was an elementary school that this issue: every HP printer in the building printed 99 copies of every print. The paper trays were emptying out quickly. A student figured out the print settings menu.
=^..^=

[roho]

Back in the day we had some large volume analog devices going out to a University Library. I had to drill and install key locks from a hardware store in the toner supply area and the waste toner, plus the paper trays. Previous machine had students using it as a impromptu urinal. Higher education............

[Lagonda]

Back in the day we had some large volume analog devices going out to a University Library. I had to drill and install key locks from a hardware store in the toner supply area and the waste toner, plus the paper trays. Previous machine had students using it as a impromptu urinal. Higher education............

And of course you covered the damage under the Service Agreement.............

[roho]

And of course you covered the damage under the Service Agreement.............

Quite likely, while our branch prepped the machines it was actually another branch who serviced them, probably included some freebies. Back in the day the Mothership was fairly generous on various customer sins.