e Studio 255/355/455, the whole series

[blackcat4866]

I've got perhaps four machines doing this, maybe more. The machine makes a crease in the crossfeed direction, approximately 35mm from the trail edge of whatever size paper it happens on. It varies a little from 20 to 45mm from the trailing edge. And it's intermittent. I've run as many as 1000 pages without a crease. Then made a copy of my invoice and it's creased.

It's a timing issue of a sort. I've figured out that at the time of the event the leading edge of the paper is at the registration roller, and the crease exactly lines up with the vertical path roller. The first machine I worked on with this problem seemed to primarily affect the KD-1026 LCF (LT), but since then, I've seen the exact same issue from tray #1 (LT-R) or (LT).

Here's the list of things I've done to address it:
Disassembled, cleaned, oiled, and examined every component from the LCF up to and including the registration roller. Cleaned all the rubber. Replaced all the clutches, registration clutch 3 times, all photosensors. Checked spring return on the flags. Smoothed out rough spots in the guides. Widened the slot in the vertical path guide, so as to clear the sensor flag.
With the imaging unit removed I checked that the paper is firmly gripped by the registration rollers. The vertical path rollers are all spring loaded and spin smoothly. I tried different types of paper, and different orientations. It seems to happen primarily on LT, but other sizes and orientations also. Probably because the majority of the paper is LT.
I can be fairly certain that the crease is happening pre-registration. Of the samples, maybe 1 in 100 of the samples is a full Z-fold with no image inside the fold.
I've tried adjusting the loop anywhere from 5 to 40. I can make the paper skew consistently with values less than 17. I can make it Z-fold consistently with values above 28. I get the best results and minimal creasing with a value of 19, but definitely not fixed.
The doors all close correctly and latch at both the front and back.

Has anybody come across this particular issue? =^..^=

[ivovb]

One more thing to do - get really big hammer and ...

Seriously. I cant understand - is there a paper jam or paper comes out with that crease (Z-fold)? Z-fold itself reminds me about similar problem and the culprit was one of the transport clutches - high and low speed 6LH53742000 (cant remember which one exactly). These two clutches are the same so You can simply swap them and see if the problem changes...

BR

[blackcat4866]

Few jams, just creasing the trailing edge. And since the paper isn't flat there, sometimes you'll notice poor toner transfer in the crease.

And yes, I'm ready for that big hammer. I don't generally run down any specific group of machines ... but I wouldn't mind if I never saw another 255 series machine. =^..^=

[mckinley]

Hi Blackcat

There is a BSI from the early days of the Loire (e255 - 455) on zfold

I have regular support calls to do where i find machines that still haven't had the codes set.

You need to change the alignment codes in 05 mode
zfold.jpg
I've attached a screen shot of the codes you need to set, be aware the codes are different for the 255/305 than for the 355/455.

Regards.

[blackcat4866]

Thanks mckinley. I'll be seeing one of those machines today. I have experimented willy-nilly with the loop settings, but I'll use the list as is. =^..^=

[mckinley]

no problem, the other method of fixing it, which is a bit unorthodox is to disconnect the lower transport clutch (bottom left of rear of machine) & leave it unplugged, that also stops zfolds on these.

Regards.

[Mad_Coachman]

Thanks mckinley. I'll be seeing one of those machines today. I have experimented willy-nilly with the loop settings, but I'll use the list as is. =^..^=

I have had good luck with setting 08-457 to 0. I had replaced the lower transport clutches and still had folding so I set the LCF timing to 0 and all is good!!

[blackcat4866]

no problem, the other method of fixing it, which is a bit unorthodox is to disconnect the lower transport clutch (bottom left of rear of machine) & leave it unplugged, that also stops zfolds on these.

Regards.

Now that's interesting! It makes me think that there's a timing problem in the firmware, or maybe the jam timing in just too imprecise. I'll give it a try next visit. =^..^=

[mckinley]

One thing to watch for is, the main drive starts to bind (the bronze bushings get gunged up) & can give a similar fault as well as other jamming issues due to the drag on the feed system. The drum shaft pin also breaks due to the binding of the main drive (there's a modded shaft & pin), if you have a broken pin (the normal pin is a split pin, which is fixed solid in the drum shaft), you will experience jams at the drum area.

Regards.

[michaelc]

On that range of machine we used to do the lower guides/sensor actuators and a some guides on the door every so often. The actuators can look ok til you line them up to a new one. If you need I can probable dig out the part numbers for you.