I Should listen when my Spider Sense is tingling...

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  • fixthecopier
    ALIEN OVERLORD

    2,500+ Posts
    • Apr 2008
    • 4713
    #1

    I Should listen when my Spider Sense is tingling...

    A year or 2 ago, I had a call to look at a Designjet 800. They had damaged the usb port, so I changed the electronic module. Plotter worked fine. About 6 months ago while I was fixing the copier, one of the soldiers said something about their plotter having a problem and did I want to look at it. "Well, not really" as I was really busy.

    About 3 months ago they called in a ticket to the shop for an estimate.

    When I walked in, at first glance, my first words were "What The Fuck?" That's when my Spider Sense started going off. The carriage was laying on top of the high quality photo paper, wit a big smear of all of the inks on the paper. I picked up the carriage, it flopped up and down.

    "What happened?"..."We don't know." That is when another alarm should have went off in my head. I look at the carriage and ask myself "Shouldn't there be some kind of bushings in here?"

    "So, you guys don't have any idea?" "Well I think there was a problem with the belt sir." I look at the belt, it looks great. So, I left and called my plotter support guy, Eddie. After describing what I saw, Eddie says he has never heard of such, the carriage must be broken. So I give them a quote to replace the carriage, with 1 hour labor. About a month later they called and approved the est. and I ordered the part.

    I go back to put it in. As I grabbed one end to pull it out, I noticed the cover was loose. When I started to remove screws, there was only 1 out of 4 or 5 that should have been there. The other covers were also missing a lot of screws. As I am commenting out loud that something is wrong here the young lady sitting at a desk next to it, now volunteers some information. It seems that some of the soldiers made an attempt at fixing it. As she is telling me this, I am looking down in the cleaning section and seeing a metal part about the size of my finger, just laying there. I later identified it as belonging on the carriage, NEAR THE BUSHINGS THEY HAD REMOVED AND THROWN AWAY! They made no attempt to align the belt, just popped it on. All in all the thing that amazed me the most was that aside from mangling the ends of the encoder strip, they didn't fuck anything else up. I had it print a config page, and am waiting for a new control panel.

    My regret is that if I had known they had taken it apart, I would have tripled my labor charge. Every time I let my guard down, they get me.
    The greatest enemy of knowledge isn't ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. Stephen Hawking
    Tags: belt, copier, designjet, fixing, paper, print, quality, support, time
    • blackcat4866
      Master Of The Obvious

      Site Contributor
      10,000+ Posts
      • Jul 2007
      • 23008
      #2
      Re: I Should listen when my Spider Sense is tingling...

      I've don't have any stories that good, but I've got two along the same lines.

      The last one was fairly recent, on an iR3230. The enduser has one of those third party service agreements in which the third party supplies the parts, and we do the labor. I had ordered the drum a week earlier. When I came back to install it, the drum was already installed, but it had a toner add indication, and they had spilled toner all over the machine and the floor. Some genius has pulled the drum unit without disconnecting the developing unit connector. It did become disconnected ... well, most of the leads ... ripped out of the connector. The toner was just a bonus.

      A couple of decades ago I had a Mita DC-111C at General Motors. I forget what the actual service call was for. When I arrived I was taken to a conference room. The gentleman escorting me warned me: " ... the Japs got to it." meaning the Japanese engineers. The machine was spread out over a conference table 15' x 6'. One of those engineers walks in and informs me that the problem is caused by ... the AC main power transformer. There are a lot of things I'm not sure of (including if I can get the machine reassembled again), but I am sure that there is nothing wrong with the AC transformer. It takes me 1 1/2 days to get the machine reassembled. Most of the developer was gone, not sure where. The drum was light shocked so had to be changed, but otherwise it worked again. I never did find out what the original problem was. And it got covered under contract.

      =^..^=
      If you'd like a serious answer to your request:
      1) demonstrate that you've read the manual
      2) demonstrate that you made some attempt to fix it.
      3) if you're going to ask about jams include the jam code.
      4) if you're going to ask about an error code include the error code.
      5) You are the person onsite. Only you can make observations.

      blackcat: Master Of The Obvious =^..^=

        Comment

        • fixthecopier
          ALIEN OVERLORD

          2,500+ Posts
          • Apr 2008
          • 4713
          #3
          Re: I Should listen when my Spider Sense is tingling...

          As long as the customer helps, we will always have a job. I had one today. Doc feed on a bizhub 250 was jamming about every third page. The customer said they blew it out real good but that didn't help. I checked the motion of the actuators, and although I never have to change the rollers in these, I went to the shop and got both of the rollers and the torque limiter and changed them. I went to test and to no surprise it didn't fix anything. It was also being stubborn about clearing the jam once the paper was removed, so I revisited the actuators and they seemed to move fine. It was then that I remembered the customer saying they had blown it out real good. I picked up their can of air and pointed at the entrance actuator and as i blew, I noticed a staple move around. I blew a little more and it got off the actuator and then it worked fine. Once again I didn't listen to my gut feeling.
          The greatest enemy of knowledge isn't ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. Stephen Hawking

            Comment

            • Phrag
              Trusted Tech

              250+ Posts
              • Oct 2012
              • 417
              #4
              Re: I Should listen when my Spider Sense is tingling...

              Originally posted by fixthecopier
              I noticed a staple move around. I blew a little more and it got off the actuator and then it worked fine. Once again I didn't listen to my gut feeling.
              I think the majority of my service calls for jamming in the doc feed are those little rectangular post it notes, or 'sign here' stickers. Our service manager has taken it upon himself to do up a nice template in big, red bold letters not to remove staples above the feeder, and take off any stickers that are amongst the pages.

                Comment

                • blackcat4866
                  Master Of The Obvious

                  Site Contributor
                  10,000+ Posts
                  • Jul 2007
                  • 23008
                  #5
                  Re: I Should listen when my Spider Sense is tingling...

                  Originally posted by Phrag
                  I think the majority of my service calls for jamming in the doc feed are those little rectangular post it notes, or 'sign here' stickers. Our service manager has taken it upon himself to do up a nice template in big, red bold letters not to remove staples above the feeder, and take off any stickers that are amongst the pages.
                  Now all we have to do is get the enduser to read it. =^..^=
                  If you'd like a serious answer to your request:
                  1) demonstrate that you've read the manual
                  2) demonstrate that you made some attempt to fix it.
                  3) if you're going to ask about jams include the jam code.
                  4) if you're going to ask about an error code include the error code.
                  5) You are the person onsite. Only you can make observations.

                  blackcat: Master Of The Obvious =^..^=

                    Comment

                    • Phrag
                      Trusted Tech

                      250+ Posts
                      • Oct 2012
                      • 417
                      #6
                      Re: I Should listen when my Spider Sense is tingling...

                      Originally posted by blackcat4866
                      Now all we have to do is get the enduser to read it. =^..^=
                      But HOW?

                        Comment

                        • blackcat4866
                          Master Of The Obvious

                          Site Contributor
                          10,000+ Posts
                          • Jul 2007
                          • 23008
                          #7
                          Re: I Should listen when my Spider Sense is tingling...

                          All the time I get calls like:

                          " ... the copier just stopped."
                          Me: What does the screen say?
                          "What?"
                          Me: What does the screen say? You know, the operation panel?
                          " ... oh, I don't know."
                          Me: Can you look now?
                          "Ok. ... um, it says Add Toner. Do you think I should add toner?"
                          Me: Yeah, lets do that. I'll wait.
                          "Hey, it's working now ... "

                          =^..^=
                          If you'd like a serious answer to your request:
                          1) demonstrate that you've read the manual
                          2) demonstrate that you made some attempt to fix it.
                          3) if you're going to ask about jams include the jam code.
                          4) if you're going to ask about an error code include the error code.
                          5) You are the person onsite. Only you can make observations.

                          blackcat: Master Of The Obvious =^..^=

                            Comment

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