Ricoh CL7000 cyan banding issue

[Andru]

Hello all,

I bought a used CL7000 back in 2008. When I first got it it had 47422 color and 2637 black pages printed. It now has 54672 color and 8716 black pages printed.

There was an initial problem in that it was printing a faint cyan line about 1/4" wide down the center of the page. I had it checked over by a Ricoh tech who said it was the photoconductor unit. I replaced it and the problem cleared up. Recently the line started showing up again. I've given it a good cleaning, but that doesn't seem to help. I've replaced all the consumables except the Developers and the Paper Feeder Roller Kit. I suspect the Cyan Developer but wanted to check first to see if there may be something I'm overlooking.

Thanks for any help you care to offer.

[Andru]

Bump for the morning crowd...

[TonerMunkeh]

Clean the laser glasses with the long brush thing first, if it's still doing it replace the dev unit.

[Andru]

Clean the laser glasses with the long brush thing first, if it's still doing it replace the dev unit.

Thanks. I've done the brush thing several times already.

[Jomama46]

It would not surprise me that the pcu is defective again. Most probably the blade is not cleaning the drum.

[Andru]

It would not surprise me that the pcu is defective again. Most probably the blade is not cleaning the drum.

Would that be fixable? Seems like an awfully expensive way to keep a printer running. If this is the case, any guesses why it's just happening to the cyan?

[Jomama46]

Yep, yep and nope.

[Andru]

Yep, yep and nope.

A person of great knowledge and few words I see. I'm interested about yep #1. Care to elaborate?

On yep #2, I've come to view this printer much like a Ferrari. Works great when it works but you need to be constantly mucking with it to keep it going.

I just had the printer apart and the only thing "obvious" was the railing that holds the developer in wasn't sitting properly and was a bit "warped," for lack of a better descriptive adjective, so it "might" be causing a misalignment. The unit was shipped across North America on a train to me, so something might have been knocked out of kilter. Anyway, I seated it properly and it straightened out.

Otherwise there were toner lines on the PCU corresponding with the lines on the paper. I cleaned them off as best as possible and on a test print the lines are gone. No surprise. I guess the question is how to keep the problem from recurring - i.e. what's causing the problem in the first place.

A less troublesome issue is the magenta has taken to "smearing" - i.e. the toner goes where it should but doesn't seem to mix/adhere properly. I suspect the developer unit but am open to suggestions if it could be something else. Thanks again for the input. It's very much appreciated.

[Jomama46]

Yes, its fixable. The drum blade is probably not cleaning the drum and may be removed and cleaned. Will it last. Not long, I'm afraid. The real fix would be to replace the PCU again. Expensive? yep. Whats causing it? It maybe 3rd party toner that is clumping and blocking the blade. On the other hand those units dont usually go the distance. Most of our customers are on Maintenance plans or at least cost per copy so they dont concern themselves with it. And we price our service knowing that they arent gonna go the distance. 50K as I recall for the pcu with the developer going 100k. No problems really with the developer unit, (toner pump feeding it is a bitch to replace) but the PCU is a different animal. the charge roller gets dirty, the blade goes dull, the drum scratches. And no parts are available to rebulid. All you can do is either replace the unit or nurse it along. As much as the technology has advanced since this model was introduced in 2003, many of the same types of copy quality problems are still there, including the ones you mentioned.
This is one of the problems with saving money by buying over the internet or from a non-dealer. Short term solution I would say. Good luck.

[Andru]

Thanks. I got 10K out of mine. Is there any magic to taking it apart other than removing screws and connecting the dots?

So the type of toners makes that much difference?