MP1350 Skip Feeding

[Shadow1]

I have a customer with 2 MP1350's. They have been running side by side for millions of clicks, and they have always performed about the same.

I did a service call on one for folded corners (buildup on a stripper finger) and noticed it wasn't feeding consistently. The machine next to it is running the exact same job and feeding fine.

The machine will feed maybe 10 or maybe 100 sheets then randomly pause for 1 feed and pick back up like nothing ever happened.

The stock is fairly common 80gsm and the job is duplex, so I don't think its a low heat problem in the fuser. One of the trays this job was using had over 600k on the feed rollers, but it didn't make any difference when I replaced it.

The only thing I can note between the machines is a slight difference in firmware. The "Good" machine is System ver 3.12 and Engine 3.22.1:16 and the "Bad" Machine is 3.10.1 and 3.20.2:16. As I said, these machines have been running side by side like this for years, so I guess its possible it's always skip fed like this and we just haven't noticed it, but it really stood out to me as I brought it back online, and I really doubt we would not have noticed it before.

Anybody got any ideas? I really hate to upgrade the firmware because both machines are still running B234 and I'd have to go to D101 - I'd hate to see one of them fail...

[Eric1968]

Are the printed pages copies or printouts? Have an SP8200DN printer which does exactly the same. No errors, SC-codes, but sometimes a pause in the print process.

[Shadow1]

Prints - in over 10M prints there are less than 1000 copies on these machines, and most of that I think was me testing.

Same scenario - no SC's, no Jams, just a quick hiccup every once in a while.

The main operator on this machine agrees with me - if it had been doing this for any length of time, we'd have noticed it.

odd.

[iMind]

just a thought, maybe drum is over life and it pauses for process control adjustments.

[iMind]

I can send you the 3.12 and 3.22 firmware

[TonerMunkeh]

I'd go with something to do with process control to. Not being trained on the Katana I can't really comment, but how often do they run process control?

[Voltage]

It doesn't have anything to do with the double-feed detection sensor being dirty?, just a guess.

[Shadow1]

Lots of good suggestions, but...

The drum is less than half its PM - I guess it could fail early, but if memory serves, the machine only develops an ID sensor patch every 10 copies. I would expect the pauses to be at somewhat regular intervals - we've observed it skipping very rarely after as few as 3 and sometimes after hundreds.

ID sensor has been cleaned and the process area was fairly clean.

Double Feed Detect is disabled on the machines.

I don't know that it will help, but I'd appreciate the firmware (.rfu if you have it - my SD card got borrowed and is still AWOL) I'll PM you my email.

I thought about formatting the drives, and I've also got a set of used HDD's I wiped. I would expect errors if they were failing, but I've seen drives get slow for a while before they die.

[tcs04]

Lots of good suggestions, but...

The drum is less than half its PM - I guess it could fail early, but if memory serves, the machine only develops an ID sensor patch every 10 copies. I would expect the pauses to be at somewhat regular intervals - we've observed it skipping very rarely after as few as 3 and sometimes after hundreds.

ID sensor has been cleaned and the process area was fairly clean.

Double Feed Detect is disabled on the machines.

I don't know that it will help, but I'd appreciate the firmware (.rfu if you have it - my SD card got borrowed and is still AWOL) I'll PM you my email.

I thought about formatting the drives, and I've also got a set of used HDD's I wiped. I would expect errors if they were failing, but I've seen drives get slow for a while before they die.

I don't know why it would pause after 3 copies, but check SP2507. If turned on (001) the machine will produce an I.D patch at the interval set in "002". normally used to hold image density on high coverage jobs.

This SP is the best way to retone a machine with low density, much better than forced toner supply. It can be set to 10 copies and as long as all functions are working the machine will retone without killing the dev. Also available on other models.

[Shadow1]

I Installed the same firmware as the "good" machine (Thanks to iMind) and no change.
The machine started throwing SC300's, so I put in new charge assemblies (didn't even make it to 500k this time) Still no change

No better, No worse. Its annoying but not critical, so I may just have to wait until it decides to give me annother clue.

Any further ideas would be great...