Any old old school copier techs here?

[gneebore]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?



I think the PC and NP lines were used by Canon to determine where the copiers were sold. The PC lines were sold through wholesale business and the NP lines were sold through licensed dealers. For example we, as an independent dealer , could buy the pc lines via Caroline Wholesale. For example the PC6RE. The same machine as an dealer supplied copier was the NP 1010. The PC copier was sold with a toner cartridge supply and the NP was sold with a drum /developer/toner components unit, The customer was responsible for changing the toner "cartridge" in the PC line. And was only responsible for replacing the empty toner ion the NP, Yes we did get service calls when the NP machines ran out of toner and the user could not figure out how to replace it. Oh yeah I also think the NP machines had a waste toner bottle too. And those when full also caused service calls because customers were too lazy to read the front cover to replace them when full.

[gneebore]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

Don't think I ever replaced the scanner drive in one of them. But we could get remanufactured or wholesale machines for really good prices so instead of putting a lot of time into one rebuilding it And the with cost of the parts we just replaced the few we did have scanner drive problems with. Or we just took one of the rental units we had on the shelf and replaced it. Then stripped the good parts and junked whatever was not worth keeping.

[KenB]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

Had to look them up but yes the box had a dial. Great little machines for light duty. But we had a few customers that ran through three toners in a month. Got so bad with one we had to pick it up off of rental since they did not have a copy count. The rentals for those machines included one toner cartridge every two months. Any more than that they got a charge for extra supplies. Even had one weird customer that insisted we provide the paper she needed to use to make copies on. Because that is a copier supply item.

[Grey]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

Fun times, when you could lift a 250 pound copier off the cement floor with another tech, all day long, no problem.

The Canon PPC-1, plain paper copier, could have been advertised as "THE LA BREA TAR PITS".

Google LA BREA TAR PITS if you don't know what that is.

Wet toner, like kerosene with India ink concentrate, about 3 quarts.

Would usually last about 2 weeks, before turning into mucky tar mess in the "TANK" developer unit.

Oh my God. 1976.


Grey

[JR2ALTA]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

I'm not old school but my first job was a mom and pop going back to 70s. They made me watch these vintage VHS tapes about proper service calls and customer skills. So awesome. Business is closed and they're passed on but I wished I would've copied them.

[KenB]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

Fun times, when you could lift a 250 pound copier off the cement floor with another tech, all day long, no problem.

The Canon PPC-1, plain paper copier, could have been advertised as "THE LA BREA TAR PITS".

Google LA BREA TAR PITS if you don't know what that is.

Wet toner, like kerosene with India ink concentrate, about 3 quarts.

Would usually last about 2 weeks, before turning into mucky tar mess in the "TANK" developer unit.

Oh my God. 1976.


Grey

The PPC-1 was a projection print camera, not an office copier.

The first Canon copier was the NP-L7, introduced in 1972.

It had a “sheet mode” feature, which would make one copy only of originals fed through it. If I remember, you could “dial in” up to 20 copies in book mode; it mechanically ratcheted down until the run was completed.

The NP-70 was the same machine, less sheet mode.

The L7 was blue, and the 70 was red, FWIW.

I worked on both of them (almost no NP70s) until the last of them disappeared around 1985 or 86.

You are absolutely correct about the nastiness of the liquid developer, though. It was also used in the NP-30, 50, 60, and 80.

These were advertised as being “Plain Paper” machines because the paper wasn’t coated, as with an electrostatic copier, and technically that was correct. The issue was that they needed paper with a smooth, hard finish, else the liquid toner would absorb into it, resulting in grey, fuzzy copies, a lot of times with lots of background. The paper dust would contaminate the developer in short order.

Canon sold the correct paper, but so did Hammermill and other paper companies, made to the proper specs.

[gneebore]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?


No There is a dial in a brown square on the left front of the copier. That had I believe preset copy enlargement/reduction ratios. The dial on the cartridge was in a tiny window/port so the operator could see the approximate toner remaining. Oh yeah we had to show customers all the time to take the toner cartridge and gently shake it before putting it in the machine to make sure the toner was evenly distributed in the cartridge. Otherwise they might get blank streaks on one side or the other. Even with fairly new-full cartridges.

[KenB]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

No There is a dial in a brown square on the left front of the copier. That had I believe preset copy enlargement/reduction ratios. The dial on the cartridge was in a tiny window/port so the operator could see the approximate toner remaining. Oh yeah we had to show customers all the time to take the toner cartridge and gently shake it before putting it in the machine to make sure the toner was evenly distributed in the cartridge. Otherwise they might get blank streaks on one side or the other. Even with fairly new-full cartridges.

Gotcha...I forgot about the reduction/enlargement dial.

[Debs1964]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

Is early 1985 old school enough, I'm sure I must be due time off for good behaviour by now

[kingarthur]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

Is early 1985 old school enough, I'm sure I must be due time off for good behaviour by now

you're a youngster compared to me

[kingarthur]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

does anyone remember the 3m Scotch copier, with the pink paper.....that's my first "copier"

[rspicer]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

I started in the business in 1994, working for a Lanier dealer. There were still a lot of Harris/3M machines out there at the time. A few years later I moved to a Toshiba Dealer, which was great because most of the Lanier engines were Toshiba made. Sometimes I miss the analog days. I had hair before I had to deal with software issues.

[spanky]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

does anyone remember the 3m Scotch copier, with the pink paper.....that's my first "copier"

I used one before long before I was a tech.

Never worked on one.

[slimslob]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

does anyone remember the 3m Scotch copier, with the pink paper.....that's my first "copier"

You mean the one where it the copy was left too close to a heat source such as sunlight shining through a window or a heater the whole sheet would turn black?

[Debs1964]

Re: Any old old school copier techs here?

you're a youngster compared to me

I knew that anyway ;-)