Here's something to look out for:
Customer called in for toner smearing/not fusing on their 3 year old C360i with a little over 100k. The fuser is original. They did not mention it but I also noticed when they print or make copies the machine made a double 'thunk' sound after the last page leaves the fuser area but before it exits the finisher - right from the fuser drive area. It's not super loud like the pop-pop-pop you can hear from the transfer belt gear skipping when the augur gets clogged but slightly more muffled and noticeable since it happened every job.
I pulled the belt and fuser out to examine the gears for the cause of the noise and since I was swapping in a new fuser anyway. Looking at the back of the fuser there is a large black gear peeking out. This gear only moves half an inch up/down and it meshes with the smaller black gear on the main body that (I think) applies the pressure to the rollers before each job. Upon closer inspection I noticed two of the teeth were worn down ever so slightly but enough to cause a noise as the pressure was removed after the paper finished passing through the fuser.
I thought maybe as the machine was applying pressure to the rollers via the gears, the gear on the fuser was skipping a couple teeth causing the noise + the fuser rollers to remain apart...which would explain the poor fusing. But if that was the case you would hear the noise before the job began instead of after. Thoughts?
Installed a new fuser, the noise disappeared and toner's fusing as it should.
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Customer called in for toner smearing/not fusing on their 3 year old C360i with a little over 100k. The fuser is original. They did not mention it but I also noticed when they print or make copies the machine made a double 'thunk' sound after the last page leaves the fuser area but before it exits the finisher - right from the fuser drive area. It's not super loud like the pop-pop-pop you can hear from the transfer belt gear skipping when the augur gets clogged but slightly more muffled and noticeable since it happened every job.
I pulled the belt and fuser out to examine the gears for the cause of the noise and since I was swapping in a new fuser anyway. Looking at the back of the fuser there is a large black gear peeking out. This gear only moves half an inch up/down and it meshes with the smaller black gear on the main body that (I think) applies the pressure to the rollers before each job. Upon closer inspection I noticed two of the teeth were worn down ever so slightly but enough to cause a noise as the pressure was removed after the paper finished passing through the fuser.
I thought maybe as the machine was applying pressure to the rollers via the gears, the gear on the fuser was skipping a couple teeth causing the noise + the fuser rollers to remain apart...which would explain the poor fusing. But if that was the case you would hear the noise before the job began instead of after. Thoughts?
Installed a new fuser, the noise disappeared and toner's fusing as it should.
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2.jpg
3.jpg
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