mp4000 - faint copies or charge roller banding

[banginbishop]

as the title says. Checking the machine over and the copies are dark on the front side (simplex) not the whole of the page just the front side lead to trailing edge half page. Adjusted the charge roller and it went pear shaped from there on. It went from slightly dark on one side to dark all over and no matter what i done it didn't get any better. I then ordered a drum, transfere belt and a charge roller.

Now i never went back as i had other stuff to do but the parts were fitted. The m/c was then booked in by the customer for black copies a few days later but on checking the quality it was ok but the customer showed me the copy and it was dark all over except the top and bottom 4-5 cm which were fine.

Now ive been today to check it and its been ok but the CQ is crap to be honest in my eyes so i need some advice on this. PMs in life.

Printed out the smc so i can refere to that but I cant upload it as I dont have a scanner to hand.

[Cipher]

Dev roller filming and dev change required probably.
Scrub the dev roller back to a shine or replace the dev unit with a modified one.

Be sure to remove the second small cleaning blade for the charge roller as it's a waste of time and clean the brass charge roller bushings and contacts with a cotton bud.
I recommend cleaning out drum unit waste toner auger / coil as the toner is normally heavy contaminated with paper dust which you don't want working back into the dev unit.
Check the drum entrance seal as they normally push inwards and break down over time.

[jonezy999]

Dev roller filming and dev change required probably.
Scrub the dev roller back to a shine or replace the dev unit with a modified one.

Be sure to remove the second small cleaning blade for the charge roller as it's a waste of time and clean the brass charge roller bushings and contacts with a cotton bud.
I recommend cleaning out drum unit waste toner auger / coil as the toner is normally heavy contaminated with paper dust which you don't want working back into the dev unit.
Check the drum entrance seal as they normally push inwards and break down over time.

Cipher is correct. I would also check the machine has the NEW toner as well. There is a bulletin regarding new toner and dev I believe for this beast. Always, always always polish these mag rollers.

[banginbishop]

thanks for the replies on this. I'll have another look at the dev/pcu unit for the normal or problems of old but the machines never had oem toner only crappy stuff and as such the machines have never really suffered the filming issue. Im not going to rule it out as im open to ideas on this.

Ill let you know when i go back and have another look.

[Ollie1981]

thanks for the replies on this. I'll have another look at the dev/pcu unit for the normal or problems of old but the machines never had oem toner only crappy stuff and as such the machines have never really suffered the filming issue. Im not going to rule it out as im open to ideas on this.

Ill let you know when i go back and have another look.

I'll back up what the others have said, any issues with image density and/or CQ that you would usually attribute to the drum or charge roller on previous machines in this family is usually down to mag roller filming and the developer. If the drum hasn't done anywhere near 150k, it's probably ok so barring a quick clean of the charge roller and removing the completely useless second cleaning blade I'd leave the drum part of the PCU alone,

Vaccing out the PCU recycle coil is recommended for the reasons Cypher said, however a little trick of my own is to run the drum motor in output mode on the slowest speed for 5-10 minutes as this will dump most of the contents of the pcu cleaning unit into the dev unit entrance, it won't get rid of stubborn blockages (had a few clumps of fluff and what appears to be hair clogging the coil before now) so if the cleaning unit is packed solid then I'd do a full strip down & vac.

You can sometimes recover without replacing developer, if the density looks thereabouts ok, I take the mag roller off and with a clean cloth get as much developer off the roller back into the lower part of the unit. I then scrub the mag roller back to shine and clean all the accumulated crap out of the doctor blade gap. I then vacuum it off to make sure all of the debris is removed and re-assemble. I run a test copy to check density and force toner/run half skyshots as appropriate to get it as good as possible before running SP 2805. This usually works 50-75% of the time but is a bit risky for a repeat call as the process control's ability to maintain copy qualiity on these things is notoriously flaky. If you replace the developer you have a better chance of not seeing it again for a while.

Personally I wouldn't dare use compatible toner in these things, it's hard enough work making them work with OEM toner! The copy quality I see is IMO generally poor from this machine in comparison to it's predecessors, I still have 1045/2045/3045 machines that I go to that piss all over these hunks of crap for copy quality believe me. I have heard anecdotal evidence to suggest that using B079-9640 type developer and 2045/3045 type toner cures these CQ issues full stop but I haven't seen it with my own eyes yet.

[cobiray]

Also check the contact plates for the charge roller arms. They can get sometimes get dirty or misaligned when replacing the PM parts. I would double check this before you throw any parts at it since you stated another replaced the parts when it was time. One last thing to check is the drum ground on the back of the machine where the drum shaft comes thru to the bearing. The grounding tabs originally fitted to the machines are woefully inadequate in my opinion. When needed, I have been replacing them with copper tabs from older Minoltas with good success. Check the resistance between the center of the drum shaft and the chassis of the machine. If you have anything other than zero you will probably need another (better) grounding tab.

[banginbishop]

Sadly like a lot of people on here I dont control what goes in the machines BUT my company has made a decision and we are reverting back to Ricoh consumables asap, just a case of running the crap stuff down.

[Ollie1981]

Sadly like a lot of people on here I dont control what goes in the machines BUT my company has made a decision and we are reverting back to Ricoh consumables asap, just a case of running the crap stuff down.

I wasn't having a dig mate, it was more making the point that the machine runs badly enough on OEM toner, ever since these things came out back in 07/08 they have had issues with the toner filming on the mag roller causing various copy quality issues often coupled with the machine throwing up sc304 (don't be fooled by the manual if you see this code, although it describes a charge issue, I'll bet a fiver everytime you see this it'll be the toner/dev issue). The modified dev units and newer toner have improved reliability somewhat but the consistency of copy quality is still a step backwards from the 3045.

As I said before.. I have heard tell through non-Ricoh sources that the machine can be run on B079 type dev & 3045 type toner very sucessfully with the reliability of the earlier machines (not perfect I grant you but an improvement nonetheless). It might be worth a word in your bosses ear if these things become a persistant problem.

[ucinn]

I wasn't having a dig mate, it was more making the point that the machine runs badly enough on OEM toner, ever since these things came out back in 07/08 they have had issues with the toner filming on the mag roller causing various copy quality issues often coupled with the machine throwing up sc304 (don't be fooled by the manual if you see this code, although it describes a charge issue, I'll bet a fiver everytime you see this it'll be the toner/dev issue). The modified dev units and newer toner have improved reliability somewhat but the consistency of copy quality is still a step backwards from the 3045.

As I said before.. I have heard tell through non-Ricoh sources that the machine can be run on B079 type dev & 3045 type toner very sucessfully with the reliability of the earlier machines (not perfect I grant you but an improvement nonetheless). It might be worth a word in your bosses ear if these things become a persistant problem.

We tried some non OEM toner in a couple of these and they actually ran better than the OEM ones. We reverted all these back to the previous versions by changing to the 0799640 developer and 245 toner... works so much better.

[banginbishop]

ok - old post but i never went back. Supervisor went out and ordered an id sensor and dev and I think he fitted only the dev. Havent been back to it but checked the log book and it all looks well.

So thanks for all the inputs and ALL advice appreciated.