Bizhub C250 Fixed - Finally!

[Hypnotoad]

Thanks to the help from people on here I have finally fixed our troublesome C250.

First it was replace the color imaging units that had only done 252 copies each. I sent and got the reset chips that fixed that problem. Then it came up with replace transfer unit.

My company called a local copier tech who pulled out the transfer unit and a few other things and said the problem was either the transfer belt was too tight or there was a broken gear inside the machine. He said it would cost upwards of $600.00 to fix. They said it wasn't worth it as he said he couldn't guarantee it would fix the problem.

I asked on here for advice and went through the replace the fuse part. I could only get a 100ma fuse locally. I got a 80ma one when I ordered parts for a project at home from Digikey. I fitted it yesterday and it worked.

Then funnily enough it would leave loose toner on the copies with a ghost image.

I looked again on here and someone suggested it could be it was in "envelope mode", I found the green levers were down, pushed them back up and it is copying fine now. The tech must have moved them when he was messing around with the machine.

Thanks for everyone's advice on here.

And a big thumbs down to Konica Minolta for pre-programming the machine to need replacement parts before they are worn out.

[mrwho]

I have no idea if I was amongst those who helped you, but I just wanted to thank you for coming back and giving us your feedback. Not everyone does it.

Cheers!

[Stirton.M]

And a big thumbs down to Konica Minolta for pre-programming the machine to need replacement parts before they are worn out.

There is a finite life to the belt and image units. As a service tech for KM, I can assure you this not done for nefarious reasons.

Sometimes we can get away with simply resetting the units as you have seen for yourself. However, copy quality will soon go south on you. Image density will most certainly start to suffer with respect to the belt unit and 2nd transfer. It simply cannot be avoided and is inevitable.

Further to this argument, had you been on a service contract with KM, replacing the part at the life count specified would not matter to you, as the cost of replacing that unit, as well as the fuser and the image units, or anything else on that machine for that matter is included in the maintenance contract.

Also, I wholeheartedly challenge you to find another manufacturer of similar equipment that does not do the same. Good luck in that endeavor, as you will not be able to.

[Hypnotoad]

First up thank you for your posts as it was you that suggested to someone to check the "envelope mode tabs" on another post for a copier with the same symptoms as ours.

All parts have a finite life, my cars engine has a finite life. However if I went out one day and my car displayed a message, "replace engine". Not because it had reached the end of it's life but the car is programmed to say that at a certain mileage and/or age. Say the mileage is 100,000 and some people get 2, 3 and even 400,000 miles. But the car maker says that if you had a service contract with us we would change it for free. Isn't that tantamount to blackmail whereas "you better have a service contract or our car will stop working after 100,000 miles and you will have to pay a fortune for repairs".

KM doesn't even tell you these things, it's Caveot Emptor!

Getting back to our copier, the imaging units are 5 years old and have done 252 copies, we obviously never do many color copies, the whole 252 being done when the machine was new. But the machine would not work without us replacing them, even though we don't need them.

Why did we get a color copier, because a nice slick KM salesperson told us we would be better of to have it there if we needed it.

KM could easily make the machine display a message that they need changing as they are five years old giving the owner the choice. But they chose to put counter chips on them so they become inoperative after a certain while, they also chose to put similar things on the transfer belt, fuser etc.

I have no problem with being warned and taking responsibility for my actions but I do have a problem with being held to ransom by a machine or the maker thereof.

As for other companies doing it, if someone else robs a bank does that make it right for me to do the same?

There is a finite life to the belt and image units. As a service tech for KM, I can assure you this not done for nefarious reasons.

Sometimes we can get away with simply resetting the units as you have seen for yourself. However, copy quality will soon go south on you. Image density will most certainly start to suffer with respect to the belt unit and 2nd transfer. It simply cannot be avoided and is inevitable.

Further to this argument, had you been on a service contract with KM, replacing the part at the life count specified would not matter to you, as the cost of replacing that unit, as well as the fuser and the image units, or anything else on that machine for that matter is included in the maintenance contract.

Also, I wholeheartedly challenge you to find another manufacturer of similar equipment that does not do the same. Good luck in that endeavor, as you will not be able to.

[Stirton.M]

Hypnotoad

Every MFP provider has the same thing. Canon, Ricoh, Xerox amongst the many here. As I said, I challenge you to find another company, ANY company, that sells a laser printer of any kind that does not eventually require the replacement of the image unit, or in some cases, the drum and developer and/or developer unit at some point in the life of the machine. Go and ask about that, your choice of forum for whatever manufacture within this site. You will get the same answer.

This is nowhere near the same thing as your car engine. It is more akin to the oil filter or tires or brakes.

As for the specifics on the image units in your particular case...re: 252 clicks, I am merely going on your word that this was the total count. For all I know, you are merely exaggerating.

But I do know this. The machine periodically does what is referred to as a stabilize process, where the machine will rotate the drum units, test their ability to take a charge, be written to, toner transferred to them and then to the transfer belt unit where sensors check to ensure density is being maintained, along with image alignment.

That process will cause wear and tear on the surface of the drum itself. The machine will monitor the drum unit and adjust itself over the life of the drum, taking into account the overall life itself...how long its been there, and how many "minutes" light has been exposed to the surface of that drum. The organic material that is light sensitive, breaks down over time, and continues to break down from other elements, ozone, oxygen.... The machine takes this into account and adjusts accordingly. There is a limit to this and eventually the machine will note the ability to reproduce an image of reasonable quality and will trigger a signal to replace the item based on the minutes counter or the page count, whichever triggers first.

You say that you got 5 years out of the image units but only 252 clicks...sucks that you got that, but I am skeptical to your being authentic about that count. Especially when you mentioned the transfer belt also needed to be reset, and I know with a certainty that the transfer belt life is dictated by the actual page count and not by a minute/page counter like the IUs are. So you going to come clean with the exaggerations or are you going to maintain the lie and diss the KM hardware on baseless accusations?

[Hypnotoad]

Hypnotoad

You say that you got 5 years out of the image units but only 252 clicks...sucks that you got that, but I am skeptical to your being authentic about that count. Especially when you mentioned the transfer belt also needed to be reset, and I know with a certainty that the transfer belt life is dictated by the actual page count and not by a minute/page counter like the IUs are. So you going to come clean with the exaggerations or are you going to maintain the lie and diss the KM hardware on baseless accusations?

Read my first post again, it's the color imaging units that have done so few copies, did you miss that in your haste to accuse me?

The color copies total for the machine is 252. In actual fact I would have thought it was less until I checked it. I can only go on the count the machine gives me. It's easy to remember as it's so low. And especially since the machine wanted us to replace all three color imaging units that cost how much?

I will take a picture of the screen with the copy counts but be warned it will make you appear very foolish.

But that's what happens when you falsely accuse people.

[mrwho]

It's easy to explain, really:

You say the machine is 5 years old with only 252 color prints. It's still perfectly possible for those IUs to spend their life like that, you just need to keep in mind that the drums also rotate when stabilizing or even after simple actions like opening and closing the doors after replacing toner or after clearing a jam and when turning on the machine or taking it out of power save. All those printless rotations are taken into account when calculatin the IU's life because they obviously also wear them.

So five years of stabilizing was apparently enough to spend te IU's life - Thanks for the info. I've speculated before with some colleagues of mine that in theory it would be possible to spend the machine's IUs without taking one single print. I just didn't knew how long it would take - now I know.

[Stirton.M]

Read my first post again, it's the color imaging units that have done so few copies, did you miss that in your haste to accuse me?

The color copies total for the machine is 252. In actual fact I would have thought it was less until I checked it. I can only go on the count the machine gives me. It's easy to remember as it's so low. And especially since the machine wanted us to replace all three color imaging units that cost how much?

I will take a picture of the screen with the copy counts but be warned it will make you appear very foolish.

But that's what happens when you falsely accuse people.

Pardon me, a look at the life count details in the service manual indicates the belt in this case is subject to the same rules.

See attached pdf excerpt

In that, it clearly states the life of the image units.

In your case, 365 days X 24 hours X 5 years equals 8765, which is roughly 2000 more hours than the rated life expectancy of the image units.

That said, the whole thing does not add up, as typically it should be the life span of just about 3 image units concurrent to the life span of one transfer belt. I see this under normal operation of the machine.

And in some cases, the image unit completely fails long before its even reached 1000 prints, and this has little to do with being locked out from use, and more to do with print quality.

There is also a software switch for your model, that should have been set at some point, though I doubt in your case since you likely have never called for service on the machine, with the exception of the current issue. That said....

Enter tech rep mode...

stop-zero-zero-stop-zero-one

From there,

stop-zero-clear

select IU stop setting, and set "no stop"

the other setting is default.

The point being, unless the customer keeps a close eye, they will leave the machine to continue to print long after image quality suffers, which is inevitable, so the setting is set to stop. Overriding this will allow you to continue, but you will still get a prompt screen to replace the unit. Replace the unit when quality suffers.

Also in tech rep, under stabilization control of image adjust, set the span setting from one to two, if this has not already been done. If the option is not available, a firmware update is required, and I highly suspect you do not have that firmware level.

G00-K0 is the latest base level. You are quite likely at version 43, or A7, or 81....

[Hypnotoad]

Meter Count for our Bizhub C250

[Hypnotoad]

I had trouble getting this image to upload and could not type in the same post.

But my memory is not at good as I thought, as you can see it's 226 color copies.

The machine was under a service contract until the lease was up. Another office leased a new unit and decided to give it to us to use. We have a center for the handicapped. The state does not give us a fortune so a penny saved is a penny earned. The last KM rep that came charged us almost $200.00 to reset the machine, he said it was reporting under heating or something. And a general reset fixed it.

I do appreciate any help I get on here but maybe this unit is out of our league and expenditure.

I also found it hard to fathom that as we never use the color part that it stops the machine from operating.

[tech51]

I`ve got lots of colour machines that only do black and white and as Stirton says the image unit life will count up as the machine stabilizes regardless of the print count, bearing in mind that if the machine is subject to temperature changes it will stabilize more frequently. However if your not fussed about colour quality then I would do what he has suggested ie: set the iu life to no stop and ignore any warning messages about replacing the image units. All mine are set that way and my customers understand that its nothing to panic about.

[Stirton.M]

I had trouble getting this image to upload and could not type in the same post.

But my memory is not at good as I thought, as you can see it's 226 color copies.

The machine was under a service contract until the lease was up. Another office leased a new unit and decided to give it to us to use. We have a center for the handicapped. The state does not give us a fortune so a penny saved is a penny earned. The last KM rep that came charged us almost $200.00 to reset the machine, he said it was reporting under heating or something. And a general reset fixed it.

I do appreciate any help I get on here but maybe this unit is out of our league and expenditure.

I also found it hard to fathom that as we never use the color part that it stops the machine from operating.

As previously stated, even the colour units rotate, regardless if you use them or not. It is afterall, a colour machine. Not a monochrome.

It may be worth your while to perhaps sell this unit and use the proceeds to purchase a monochrome printer....I recommend a decent HP....

Unless an copier is what you want...I highly suggest you get the machine on a service agreement, to avoid this issue down the road if you choose to keep the machine. The cost varies based on too many variables I am not privy to, so I am not sure what you may face, but ultimately, you will need to replace the units eventually, along with the belt and fusing units. As I recall, a nominal fee along with click counts based on usage, something to the tune of about 1-8 cents per page for full colour, under a penny for black...or there about.

The added benefit is knowing the machine will get the service it needs without the hassle of high consumable costs....the fuser will run somewhere between $500-1000, pending on your source, the image units perhaps around $300-500, transfer belt about the same as a fusing unit. Katun is a good source for OEM at reduced cost...

There are other multiple "cheap" sources such as Ebay, or some local re-manufacture source that will save money, but from a personal point of view are very risky...Ebay you could run the risk of being ripped off for a used unit that was "reset", or the re-manufactured device may not have been re-manufactured to standard...unknowns. Taking chances is what I would call it.

In the end, you know what your cost absorption needs are, so it is your choice what route you go.



Oh yes, I forgot to add to the above post...

to enter tech rep, press the utility key, select counter, then details. You should see a screen that displays what you have in the photo, but the right side should show a breakdown of colour usage and a "print" button (which allows you to print out a detailed use report). No need to go that far, unless you want to see this report. Just that when you are at the point I described, looking at the detailed meter screen, then enter the codes described above to enter tech rep mode.

[mrwho]

I agree with Stirton's advise about getting a service agreement. You must keep in mind that, even though you can reset most of the consumables in order for them to work for a longer time, they will eventually die, and you'll need to replace them eventually.

[BUKY]

KONICA MINOLTA c250p IU and transfer belt reset/ no cyan and magenta

Hello, I m new here, but you helped me to do the reset and averything is like
you said .
My problem is directly after reseting on message on display

Machine status 6/7/ / /

and the print is with no cyan and magenta only 2% and k and y is normal.
Itried to rebbot machine and clean the connections but nothing.
I have onli one inch of colour on that two colours in the beginning of page
an the rest coverage is faded and arroun 2 % of full tone.
Does annyone knows what to do.

[mrwho]

Can you post an example?