drum polish??

[tonerhead]

I heard rumor that the Ricoh 03/04/IMC drums will go long past their projected life, if you replace the lube bar and drum blade as needed, polish the drum, and "new finish" the charge roller. I heard that guys get around 1 million life if they do this. The secret is the polish buffs out the micro rotational abrasions in the drum. Stuff like "new finish" only fills the abrasions, just a temp fix. They need to be polished out, not just filled. I guess Brasso doesn't work because of the ammonia in it.

Is anyone polishing the drums? What are you using?

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: drum polish??

You're talking about "buffing" the drum with an abrasive solution (rubbing compound). This is simlar to buffing a car out after it's been painted. The only warning I would give is to not buff thru the OPC layer or whatever type of layer is used. I've never done it. I just replace it.

[tonerhead]

Re: drum polish??

Yup that is what I'm talking about. I've always replaced also, but if it's possible, it would save me some $$$.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: drum polish??

Yup that is what I'm talking about. I've always replaced also, but if it's possible, it would save me some $$$.

My dad was a car dealer and when I was in high school, I worked in the paint and body shop. We used high speed air buffers to buff out the paint. Depending on the hardness of the drum and the depth of the scratches, it could turn into quite a job if you're buffing it by hand. Also, even the finest rubbing compound will leave micro-scratches. Factory drums have a mirror finish. Rubbing compound may improve a worn drum enough to get more life out of it. Not sure.

[slimslob]

Re: drum polish??

My experience with the 03s has been that they would go 2 to 3 times the PM count as long as you replaced the lube bar when it got down to about 3/16 inch remaining at one end. For some reason they tended to wear more at one end. For that reason when I would take them apart to clean the charge roller I would swap ends.

I never tried polishing the drums. Hold over from the days when there were different types of drum coatings, OPC cadmium selenium. Use of the wrong polish could prove deadly.

[KenB]

[copier tech]

Re: drum polish??

I heard rumor that the Ricoh 03/04/IMC drums will go long past their projected life, if you replace the lube bar and drum blade as needed, polish the drum, and "new finish" the charge roller. I heard that guys get around 1 million life if they do this. The secret is the polish buffs out the micro rotational abrasions in the drum. Stuff like "new finish" only fills the abrasions, just a temp fix. They need to be polished out, not just filled. I guess Brasso doesn't work because of the ammonia in it.

Is anyone polishing the drums? What are you using?

No, you can not clean or polish these drums, they are the same as the xx03 & previous models. Once the OPC is scored/scratched nothing you can do about it.

Ricoh now supply the charge roller as a separate PM part so I replace these when the PCU hits PM life, this works well to extend the PCU life.

[tsbservice]

Re: drum polish??

Polishing OPC drums, no way today. However there are some ways to prolong drums life like mentioned above. Better not touch drum if possible.

[tonerhead]

Re: drum polish??

Here's a followup. For the past week or so I have done 6 drums. The verdict is still out, but the results look promising. Of course with my luck all 6 will fail next week (lets hope not).

My research led me to a soft cleanser called "Bar Keepers Friend" this is similar to "softscrub" but is supposedly non-abrasive. I've got to admit, it really does a good job getting the minor rotational scratches out of the Ricoh drums. It seems to smooth out the drum surface really nice.

Here's what I do.

1. Wet towel (wyp-alls) clean drum of any toner,
2. 2nd wet towel. Apply cleanser to towel and gently start buffing out rotational scratches moving end to end on drum. A little experimentation is needed for the amount of pressure to use. I've been applying enough of the cleanser to the wet towel that it looks like watery liquid soap with bubbles when applied to the drum
3. 3rd wet towel. Remove cleanser from drum and repeat step 2 if more buffing is needed.
4. Dry towel, Gently absorb any moisture on the drum.
5. Clean/replace drum blade and charge roller as you have been doing.

I would like to invite you to try this. I would like to hear if others have good results also.

I also would like to say this is not a repair to damaged drums. I'm just trying to get more life out of drums that work but have minor rotational scratches that dirty up charge rollers in a short time causing callbacks.

It's a cheap experiment. A good sized bottle of the stuff is $4 at Ace Hardware. I started with a severely scratched throwaway drum for the first practice run. It polished that so nice that I was tempted to try using it again.

Post any results back, thanks.

[blackcat4866]

Re: drum polish??

I can't speak to Ricoh drums, but the Kyocera, Konica Minolta, Lexmark, HP, Toshiba OPC dums have a clearcoat over the photoconductive coating. ANY process that removes that clearcoat is reducing the drum life, and inviting striction (toner adhering to the photoconductive layer, leaving teardrop shaped voids).

I can't imagine this being successful. =^..^=

[jmaister]

Re: drum polish??

No you dont want to polish the drums.

Not even with potato starch on opc.







Yah....

[Phil B.]

Re: drum polish??

No you dont want to polish the drums.

Not even with potato starch on opc.







Yah....

Agreed NEVER on Organic Photo Conductor drums.
Selenium drums yes.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[Rusty.Harris]

Brasso or Pickle

The last time I polished a drum, you used brasso or pickle. But that was the days of the cadmium and selenium drums.
I've cleaned organics with nothing more than 99% alcohol, but that's it.