Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

I had a service call on a Riso in an older building that they hooked up with a custom made extension cord. I don't know how they did it, but frame ground measured forty volts over neutral when I first got there. That doesn't sound like much, but it is darn irritating when I was taking the screws off the back cover.
Oh, and it probably doesn't do the machine any good, either.
I had them fix that before I did any more work on the machine. And I still had to jump safety ground to neutral to get the machine to work properly so they would fix that as well.

I think it was a Canon ... the enduser had yanked out the ground prong, and was using a 6A, 18 gauge lamp cord. You could cook eggs on that cord. And the frame measured 67vac frame to neutral. I got a good healthy tickle every time I removed a screw.

Recently we had OSHA show up at a customer location. The customer was horrified when an OSHA rep chopped off the power cord. When we finally got the rest of the story, it turns out that a creative customer had twisted the neutral prong to make a 20A plug fit into a 15A outlet. I don't think that OSHA considers this a best practice.
=^..^=

[Phrag]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

I think it was a Canon ... the enduser had yanked out the ground prong, and was using a 6A, 18 gauge lamp cord. You could cook eggs on that cord. And the frame measured 67vac frame to neutral. I got a good healthy tickle every time I removed a screw.

Recently we had OSHA show up at a customer location. The customer was horrified when an OSHA rep chopped off the power cord. When we finally got the rest of the story, it turns out that a creative customer had twisted the neutral prong to make a 20A plug fit into a 15A outlet. I don't think that OSHA considers this a best practice.
=^..^=

You guy's have some strange happenings in yankee-land. I haven't heard of anything like that around here where I am. OH&S is really strict here. Seriously strict.

[CompyTech]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

You guy's have some strange happenings in yankee-land. I haven't heard of anything like that around here where I am. OH&S is really strict here. Seriously strict.

I told a customer recently he couldn't hook up a machine in his house cause he had 1950s outlets (no ground, both slots were the same size). Fortunately for him, he ended up having a modern 120v outlet.

[slimslob]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

I told a customer recently he couldn't hook up a machine in his house cause he had 1950s outlets (no ground, both slots were the same size). Fortunately for him, he ended up having a modern 120v outlet.

I hope he had a qualified electrician prpperly rewire it accordig to code.

[Jules Winfield]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

I don't know about a silly location, but the dirtiest machine I ever came across in the field was in a hospital. Yeah...

[KapeKopyTek]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

Savin 4035 in the back room of an old accountants office. Machine was tucked in a corner next to the coffee machine. Room was packed full of boxes of paper, stacked yea high, blocking most of the light. Pulled covers off to get at the gearbox or something, found the inside full of French Vanilla coffee grounds. I thought all the fans blew OUT, guess the grounds got sucked in somehow. Took hours to wrestle that machine around, pull covers, clean, etc. Never cared for French Vanilla coffee anyway, even less so now. Dreaded reschedules there.

2515 at the local dog pound, insides full of hair and rodent pellets.

[brewster67]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

Not really a silly location but it was a don't touch any thing and leave the building moment.

I had a new machine install for a used car lot. They had a trailer set up with desks inside. I did my usual check of power. Between hot and neutral 110v, neutral to ground 110v, ground to hot 220v. Something is very wrong here. So I checked from hot to the copper piping on the radiator 220v. This was about the time that I said don't touch any thing and left the building. I told the owner what was going on and found out that his wife's brother had hooked up the electrical service to the trailer. It seems that he had hooked 110 to the ground. This is why I always check power on new installs.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

Not really a silly location but it was a don't touch any thing and leave the building moment.

I had a new machine install for a used car lot. They had a trailer set up with desks inside. I did my usual check of power. Between hot and neutral 110v, neutral to ground 110v, ground to hot 220v. Something is very wrong here. So I checked from hot to the copper piping on the radiator 220v. This was about the time that I said don't touch any thing and left the building. I told the owner what was going on and found out that his wife's brother had hooked up the electrical service to the trailer. It seems that he had hooked 110 to the ground. This is why I always check power on new installs.

Damn I wish our people did that. I'd say a good 1/4 of our installs end up needing corrections to the power after the fact. And they bitch up a storm about it. =^..^=

[slimslob]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

Not really a silly location but it was a don't touch any thing and leave the building moment.

I had a new machine install for a used car lot. They had a trailer set up with desks inside. I did my usual check of power. Between hot and neutral 110v, neutral to ground 110v, ground to hot 220v. Something is very wrong here. So I checked from hot to the copper piping on the radiator 220v. This was about the time that I said don't touch any thing and left the building. I told the owner what was going on and found out that his wife's brother had hooked up the electrical service to the trailer. It seems that he had hooked 110 to the ground. This is why I always check power on new installs.

Had a customer one time bring an Olivetti electronic typewriters with blown power supplies. They had just oved into a new building and electricians had not connected the neutral to the panel on the second floor. The typewriter was rthe first thing plugged in to one leg of the AC. Every thing on the other leg found a momentary completed circuit through the Olivetti.

Had another with a number of desk top dictations machines. The election who brought the triple phase in from the meter mislabled one of the 110v legs and the 208V stinger.

[Lagonda]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

The silliest place I saw a copier was on a salesman's desk...............as if!!

[HenryT2]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

I don't know about a silly location, but the dirtiest machine I ever came across in the field was in a hospital. Yeah...

We had a hospital call in one time about their ( analog ) Toshiba squeaking when making copies.
When we got there and tested the copier, it did indeed squeak .
The cause was found when we removed the rear cover . A mouse was hung in the main drive gear and as it turned ;
the drive chain would mash ( that's southern for ' squeeze ' ) it's tail ,and it would make a noise.
We had to kill the mouse to get it out . The secretary was not thrilled to see the cause of the noise.

[Eric1968]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

We had a hospital call in one time about their ( analog ) Toshiba squeaking when making copies.
When we got there and tested the copier, it did indeed squeak .
The cause was found when we removed the rear cover . A mouse was hung in the main drive gear and as it turned ;
the drive chain would mash ( that's southern for ' squeeze ' ) it's tail ,and it would make a noise.
We had to kill the mouse to get it out . The secretary was not thrilled to see the cause of the noise.

Some 15-20 years ago I found the remnants of a mouse in a Oki 110 Fax. The client mentioned that the fax produced a bad smell. The mouse was electrocuted by the power supply, but the machine kept on working.

[Akitu]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

We had a hospital call in one time about their ( analog ) Toshiba squeaking when making copies.
When we got there and tested the copier, it did indeed squeak .
The cause was found when we removed the rear cover . A mouse was hung in the main drive gear and as it turned ;
the drive chain would mash ( that's southern for ' squeeze ' ) it's tail ,and it would make a noise.
We had to kill the mouse to get it out . The secretary was not thrilled to see the cause of the noise.

I can only imagine your surprise at discovering the live mouse. Definitely an odd squeak you have here ma'am.

Out of curiosity, how did you dispose of the unwanted accessory in the machine? Pith'd a la science frog?

[slimslob]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

Some 15-20 years ago I found the remnants of a mouse in a Oki 110 Fax. The client mentioned that the fax produced a bad smell. The mouse was electrocuted by the power supply, but the machine kept on working.

I had a call on a Gestetner 2212 at the Tehachapi for trays 2 and three not working. When I got there I noticed a smell. After I toke the back cover off the paper bank, I found the remains of a dead mouse in the paper feed drive. Took a while to get that all cleaned out.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Silly locations that you've seen printers or copiers sitting.

I had a Mita DC-111 (not C) located in a Catholic school. I was called in in the fall for jamming ... and the smell. Apparently a family of mousies had moved in a few weeks earlier, and were surprised to death by the heating of the fuser (they were just below the fuser). The jamming was a mouse wedged in the exit. And the smell was ... well, roast mouse.

Another tech I worked with told me about a weird quality problem occurring on a Mita DC-5055. It was a shaded area that moved around on the page. According to him, there were multiple mousies housed in the lens unit making shadow images on the copies. I can just imagine him chasing the little makers of silhouettes around the optics. Where's a cat when you need one?

Another: an NP-6060 that was jamming. I never saw the culprits, but there were a number of small critters transporting dried corn from a sack in the corner, to the paper trays and duplexer. On the third visit I issued a bill. Out came the mousetraps.

Ok, last one. There was an Brother typewriter that was logic locked. Upon examination I found a number of foil wrappings from Hershey's Kisses left upon the main board. In the evening after the secretary went home, our mousie would fetch Hersheys from the candy dish, and eat them inside the typewriter. To my surprise, All I had to do was dump out all the foil, and splice together 3 or 4 wires.

=^..^=