C6500 DV Material or DV Unit?

[vickash]

Hi all,

This is my first time dealing with a developer issue on my used C6500, and I need some advice please.

After startup yesterday I noticed there was about a 2" strip at the operator side of the machine with almost no black coverage. I pulled the developer out and sure enough, that part of the mag roller was almost bare. I wish I took a photo as soon as I pulled it, so it would be more obvious, but there's one attached. I turned the gears a small amount, that's probably why the bottom part filled in. Then some toner that was on top of the unit fell onto it when I was vacuuming, but you get the idea.

It didn't throw any codes, nor were there any quality issues before this happened. Has only run OEM toner with me, and with the previous owner, as far as I can tell from their service log.

The counters are:
DV Unit: 408k / 600k
DV Material: 111k / 200k (but 199% distance)

I swapped in the black unit from my parts machine in the meantime, and that's running fine.

Should I bother trying new developer material in this, or is that the end of this unit?

Thanks in advance!

[Phil B.]

Re: C6500 DV Material or DV Unit?

Hi all,

This is my first time dealing with a developer issue on my used C6500, and I need some advice please.

After startup yesterday I noticed there was about a 2" strip at the operator side of the machine with almost no black coverage. I pulled the developer out and sure enough, that part of the mag roller was almost bare. I wish I took a photo as soon as I pulled it, so it would be more obvious, but there's one attached. I turned the gears a small amount, that's probably why the bottom part filled in. Then some toner that was on top of the unit fell onto it when I was vacuuming, but you get the idea.

It didn't throw any codes, nor were there any quality issues before this happened. Has only run OEM toner with me, and with the previous owner, as far as I can tell from their service log.

The counters are:
DV Unit: 408k / 600k
DV Material: 111k / 200k (but 199% distance)

I swapped in the black unit from my parts machine in the meantime, and that's running fine.

Should I bother trying new developer material in this, or is that the end of this unit?

Thanks in advance!

Being an end user I would hire a trained tech, because there are adjustments to be run after the new dev powder is installed.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[wjurls]

Re: C6500 DV Material or DV Unit?

Being an end user I would hire a trained tech, because there are adjustments to be run after the new dev powder is installed.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

This! Not to mention a good tech may be able to tell if it's a problem with the dev unit or something else obstructing the flow. Those old machines are notorious for getting dry rotted bits of foam and mylar into the units.

[orestesp]

Re: C6500 DV Material or DV Unit?

Hi all,

This is my first time dealing with a developer issue on my used C6500, and I need some advice please.

After startup yesterday I noticed there was about a 2" strip at the operator side of the machine with almost no black coverage. I pulled the developer out and sure enough, that part of the mag roller was almost bare. I wish I took a photo as soon as I pulled it, so it would be more obvious, but there's one attached. I turned the gears a small amount, that's probably why the bottom part filled in. Then some toner that was on top of the unit fell onto it when I was vacuuming, but you get the idea.

It didn't throw any codes, nor were there any quality issues before this happened. Has only run OEM toner with me, and with the previous owner, as far as I can tell from their service log.

The counters are:
DV Unit: 408k / 600k
DV Material: 111k / 200k (but 199% distance)

I swapped in the black unit from my parts machine in the meantime, and that's running fine.

Should I bother trying new developer material in this, or is that the end of this unit?

Thanks in advance!

Judging by the distance counter on the developer and assuming that the same has been true for the 1 or 2 bags of developer that might have been inside the unit:

Although the unit is within life, printed pages wise, it might have been rotating for far longer than that counter suggests. As stated, I am also guessing that something has probably gotten between the mag roller and the doctor blade. If you take the four self taping screws that screw onto the plastic cover and remove that cover you will see the inside of the unit and the doctor blade. You might be able to see if something has been caught on the blade.

There is a piece of foam that is running the length of the unit and a second piece of foam (a rectangle, to be exact) on the side of the unit where it receives the toner. Maybe part of the former seal somehow broke off and got caught on the blade.

Either way, if pieces of foam or some kind of contaminants have found their way in there it is very difficult to get them out. Even if you empty out the unit, you will waste a bag of good developer if you were to reuse this unit, as it is more than likely that white stripes will appear sooner or later due to a piece been left in there.

I would dig deeper into the issue to find what exactly caused this, but if it what I described, I would put a new unit or a known good one with some life left in it + new developer. Be sure to follow the procedure outlined in the service manual otherwise you could damage the dv unit when emptying it out or have problems with image quality and what not.

[orestesp]

Re: C6500 DV Material or DV Unit?

To give you a better picture, this is what it looks like when the seal material has completely withered away. This is a very old unit with over 2,000,000 impressions on it. A piece of foam could easily find its way on the back of the doctor blade, causing you a issue similar to what you are experiencing.

[L0rdC]

Re: C6500 DV Material or DV Unit?

This! Not to mention a good tech may be able to tell if it's a problem with the dev unit or something else obstructing the flow. Those old machines are notorious for getting dry rotted bits of foam and mylar into the units.

We have that problem in the Y unit, my finger still hurts from turning the gear to get all the bits out

[tsbservice]

Re: C6500 DV Material or DV Unit?

We have that problem in the Y unit, my finger still hurts from turning the gear to get all the bits out

Practice with some Toshibas and your fingers will get callus - no more pain

[vickash]

In case anyone has this issue in future, the problem was loss of developer material from the housing, not the housing itself. Probably from leaky seals, and I vacuum often enough that it's hard to notice how much gets lost?

Either way, for this black unit, and a magenta that showed the same symptom, I tried "topping up" the developer a bit, as an experiment. In both cases it fixed the problem for a while. Of course, you should really change out the developer material entirely at that point. The black unit in that photo has done another 300k since then.