Ricoh Aficio MP 161 SPF cost of repairs vs. new machine

Je63069 · 01-05-2017

Hi to everyone,
being new to this forum and being an user not a technician, I hope you will not ban me, but give me a bit of your expert insight.

Four years ago I bought a Ricoh Aficio MP 161 SPF. Now the machine has 63304 copies / prints made, which seems to be not so much.

Unfortunately the paper separator of the adf is making trouble, I get multi feeding, if I put in eg. 20 copies, the first 15 are ok, then the rest is pulled in as one page, the adf jamms. I used first isopropylalkohol and then fine sandpaper on the rubber rolls of the upper two and lower rubber roller and put some grease on the spring of the lower roller push-up mechanism. It helped - none. The separation rollers seem to be spent.

Now in addition to this I get a sight horizontal stripes covering the whole of the pages, not only if I scan or copy, also when I am printing via USB or printing a journal of the machine. It seems to be that the drum unit is also spent. I do not know if it has been changed so far, if not 63k pages seem very ok.

I asked Rico here in Frankfurt, Germany, they told me the drum unit would be about 400 € which is about the same in USD. On Amazon I could get the drum unit for about 80-100 €/USD.

If I repair the drum unit, the rollers what else is going to break? Could anyone tell me, the life cycle of the fuser unit? The machine being some years old, spare parts for newer printers might be easier to get....

Thanks, Jens

**KenB** · 01-05-2017

The MP 161 was a great machine for its time, but I can't see putting much money into it now.

Don't pitch it just yet, though. Shop around and see what you can find out there.

There is a lot that can be had at a low cost that would outperform it.

**rthonpm** · 01-05-2017

The life of the PCU (drum) is 45,000 by the book but I have seen them go closer to 50-60,000 before having issues. The fuser has a life expectancy of 90,000 pages but again it may go past that, and the component parts (heat tube, pressure roller, thermistor, and bearings) are replaced as opposed to purchasing an entirely new fuser. For the feed rollers in the document feeder, you may be able to find those online, but don't use any kind of sandpaper on them as you will take off the coating that allows the paper to be driven through the feeder as opposed to the roller just gliding across it: the rollers should have a slight tackiness that works like the treads of a tyre on a car.

I've always liked the 161 and the family of machines it came from: the 15, 16, and 17 page per minute machines were always quite reliable. If you're willing to keep it out of the landfill, and think of the cost you put in spread out over the next four years, is it going to be cheaper than buying a new machine and the cost of its consumables or PM parts over the same span?

**copyaction** · 01-05-2017

Also factor in the toner cost for the 161 series is very low.
A lot of desktop machines you will find out there, the cost of the toner/drum would be more than the cost of repairing yours.