Ricoh MPC2000/MPC2500 streaks on prints driving me crazy!

[sarm2001]

Hi,

I would suspect the K PCU is at fault looking at the examples. K toner is not being cleaned properly by the blade due to wear, this transfers to the ITB then onto the PTR as your picture shows. Try cleaning the blade but I think a replacement would be better. The high coverage will also not be helping as this is an old office device meant for low coverage work.

Cheers.

[Michael Craig]

If I remember correctly those machines have oil and cleaning rollers in the fuser. They will often run clean on the first few copies and the cause streaks. I would not your diagnoses to the drums. Also check the transfer unit cleaning blade. The assembly is easy to swap out and may resolve many issues.

[fearworksmedia]

Thank you to everyone who has replied so far.

There seems to be a range of suggestions from people, but I think there are only certain ones that apply in my situation. I want to just correct something I said originally, and that is - upon closer inspection - the streaks do not seem to be composed of a mixture of colours, but rather they do tend to be one colour. As someone pointed out earlier (sarm2001) the streaks do seem to be made up of one colour. I was sure that I have seen them with dustings of different toner colours in the past, but upon inspection with a USB microscope, these streaks are indeed just K toner. I also sometimes get similar M streaks, depending on the coverage and what is being printed.

The route I am going to go down first is to renew the blades on the PCUs and the ITB cleaning unit.

I also have a question about something that intrigues me. Can anyone comment whether the wax lubricant bars in the PCUs or in the ITB cleaning unit can cause this issue? Does a bad/old bar lead to a lack of lubricant on the drum and belt, making the toner more difficult for the brushes and blades to clean? What is the ACTUAL purpose of those lube bars? I've always been under the impression that this is the reason for them - to provide a cushion of lubricant between the drum and toner, and the belt and toner, so that the toner transfers and cleans from those surfaces more easily, but maybe I am wrong? BTW, all the lube bars in both my PCUs and cleaning unit are good and none are depleted. However, some of them may be older now and I also wondered if they can go bad as they age.

Many thanks once again to all of you for your comments and thoughts with this!

Keith.

P.S. I don't believe in replacing an entire unit if I can solve the problem by renewing parts. I've had several toner pumps go and every time I have replaced the inner rubber which has not only fixed the problem and brought a dead toner pump back to life, but it has saved me about £60 each time. These machines don't sit in a big corporate office, they sit in my own home office, so I don't have the funds of a big corporation to throw at expensive brand new parts, unless I have no choice.

[davel]

If not serviced correctly you can expect inferior performance.

[AjitN]

[QUOTE=fearworksmedia;714256]

I also have a question about something that intrigues me. Can anyone comment whether the wax lubricant bars in the PCUs or in the ITB cleaning unit can cause this issue?

Wax should not be a constraint in this case as Toner it self contains adequate amount of wax which serves as lubricant to drum+blade & Transfer belt + transfer cleaning blade, as well as semi gloss for image on paper after fusing.

Regards