The importance of shaking the toner cartridge

[EarthKmTech]

Its of utmost importance to shake the hell out of the new toner cartridge prior to installation especially on machines with auto-refining developer.

I am currently working at a remote maximum security facility where everything you bring in is X-rayed. (high resolution colour display belt driven airport security type)

I was interested to see and was allowed to look at what the toner cartridges looked like when passed through in respect to the distribution of the developer and toner. These had been on the shelf for 6 months in the warehouse just outside the facility prior to being used today.( all 4 colours)

The developer which shows clearly on the x-ray in stark contrast to the toner ends up separated and pooling in 1 or 2 round clumps at the lowest surfaces of the cartridge. It almost looks like the bottles are deliberately tampered with and filled with a suspicious non uniform substance.

Unfortunately no phones or cameras are allowed in so you'll just have to take my word for it. Unless someone else can X-ray a toner thats been sitting for a while

This pretty much confirms my suspicion of failing dev units SOMETIMES being directly a result of customers NOT shaking the toner before installation.

[habik]

Re: The importance of shaking the toner cartridge

Nice one!

Byting on bits.

[DigiMan]

Re: The importance of shaking the toner cartridge

Good one mate!

[blackcat4866]

Re: The importance of shaking the toner cartridge

I've got a couple different Kyoceras to feed toner by taking the toner cartridge out back, and beating it mercilessly on the ground to break up hard packed toner. It's easy to identify. The agitation drive on the back of the cartridge just won't turn at all.

[EarthKmTech]

Re: The importance of shaking the toner cartridge

I've got a couple different Kyoceras to feed toner by taking the toner cartridge out back, and beating it mercilessly on the ground to break up hard packed toner. It's easy to identify. The agitation drive on the back of the cartridge just won't turn at all.

Speaking of such things.

We quite often were having imaging unit machines locking up with dev drive errors on customers changing imaging units quite frequently once upon a time.

Any time IU's were left on end or even stored for an extended period in a poor environment the contents turns rock hard.

Belting the living shit out of the dev area with a screw driver handle and then rotating manually was my fix.

Now due to cost cutting, customer are not permitted to keep imaging units spare and can only order them when the machine is asking for them. This practice has also eliminated this problem too.

[habik]

Re: The importance of shaking the toner cartridge

One would have thought that during transport to customers the rocks would break up.

After I had to pull apart the whole C253 for 2nd time due to clumps of toner being stuck in auger drive and went rock solid ending up with that famous ratcheting noise, we have made it a routine, for every time before we delivered toner cartridge it has been beaten up heavily ..plus every customer of that range has been advised and most of them gave the cartridges a good battering.

Instructions on every toner cartridge say to do the wave/ rocking movement 5x each way. Think 5 minutes of this process would be more accurate and efficient.

Sometimes I was thinking to buy old 2nd-hand paint can mixer. That would break the clumps properly, question is if that container would handle it.

[EarthKmTech]

Re: The importance of shaking the toner cartridge

Sometimes I was thinking to buy old 2nd-hand paint can mixer. That would break the clumps properly, question is if that container would handle it.

Probably would do a damn good job but might be over kill

[blackcat4866]

Re: The importance of shaking the toner cartridge

Speaking of such things.

We quite often were having imaging unit machines locking up with dev drive errors on customers changing imaging units quite frequently once upon a time.

Any time IU's were left on end or even stored for an extended period in a poor environment the contents turns rock hard.

Belting the living shit out of the dev area with a screw driver handle and then rotating manually was my fix.

Now due to cost cutting, customer are not permitted to keep imaging units spare and can only order them when the machine is asking for them. This practice has also eliminated this problem too.

The concept of the parallelogram boxes for the IU's is good, but it doesn't prevent endusers from leaning them up against a wall, or stacking them on a radiator. The ones on the radiator were a lost cause.

... Sometimes I was thinking to buy old 2nd-hand paint can mixer. That would break the clumps properly, question is if that container would handle it.

How about one of those paper stack vibrators that queue up the stacks of finished copies?