Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci / ghost printing

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  • Mulder78
    Junior Member
    • Apr 2019
    • 4

    Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci / ghost printing

    Hello to all,

    I recently got a used Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci for small office/home office use.
    It has a page count of 170k and is still at firmare version from 2013.

    Maybe a bit oversized, you will say, but I got it rather cheap and before that
    we had a Lexmark x850e, but sadly its main board died. So we got used to
    having 4 paper trays.

    My naive thinking was: A machine that is built to do tens of thousands of pages
    a month should last very long when printing only a few hundreds a month.
    Well, time will tell if this is going to work out...
    I already read in this forum that for this machines it is maybe not so good if
    they idle most of the time.

    I am not a copier technician, but I some IT background - and the service manual ;-).
    But maybe you are kind enough to give me some hints.

    The major problem at the moment is a light ghost printing. This occurs also
    when printing b/w only. I have not tested if it occurs with only one color.

    The ghost image appears on the back of the paper sheet. When printing a bunch
    of sheets, the first couple is the worst, then it is getting better, but
    during the print job can become worse again. Sometimes, when I print out
    only one page, there is no sign of ghost printing, however.

    I uploaded to images, on the original one you can see that the ghost image is
    very light. The second image was photoshopped so you can better see the ghosting.
    The arrow points into the exit direction (as I said, ghosting appears on back side).

    It looks to me that the two rectangles top and bottom are caused by some rollers,
    dont't you think? In any case they are not part of the printed content.
    The lines however are ghost images of content from the printed pages
    before. So, maybe two different problems on one page? The roller marks also
    occur less often than the ghost lines.

    Do you have any hints? Can I clean something apart from what is shown in
    the user guide?
    Should I do a drum or developer refresh? What happens exactly at a refresh?
    I imagine that a developer refresh will waste some toner, is that right?
    Would it help to alter some setting to lower the amount of toner used?

    Hopefully no part is worn down, because getting a new part would be as
    expensive as the whole copier was...I read the parts should yield 300k.

    Oops, lots of text I wrote...Thanks in advance for your opinions.

    Kind regards
    Dirk
    Attached Files
  • Mulder78
    Junior Member
    • Apr 2019
    • 4

    #2
    Re: Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci / ghost printing

    Sorry, I made a mistake: Exit direction (leading edge) is left on the pictures, not right. Arrows point into the wrong direction. I can't figure out how to edit the post, seems I'm not allowed.

    I did another thing: I copied a page each in C, M, Y, K only mode, and the ghosting occurrs at each color. But the "roller marks" occur only at K.

    As far as I can see it is genuine Kyocera toner - the cartridges have a little hologram sticker on one end.

    Kind Regards
    Dirk

    Comment

    • bsm2
      IT Manager

      25,000+ Posts
      • Feb 2008
      • 27447

      #3
      Re: Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci / ghost printing

      Each drum unit has its own cleaning blade, KCYM
      also there is a cleaning blade or brush for the transfer belt. If its on every color most likely the transfer belt.
      Check the waste toner container and replace that. Waste toner replacement light would never come on.
      Kyocera parts on color machines never yield parts life of 300k

      Could not see roller marks but old school trick is rollup paper so marks match, that's the size part that is leaving the mark on paper.

      Comment

      • Scottb
        Trusted Tech

        Site Contributor
        VIP Subscriber
        250+ Posts
        • Apr 2013
        • 301

        #4
        Re: Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci / ghost printing

        if its on the back of a single sided copy I would check the fuser first...

        Comment

        • JR2ALTA
          Service Manager

          Site Contributor
          1,000+ Posts
          • Feb 2010
          • 2017

          #5
          Re: Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci / ghost printing

          1/3 of page, backside only, clear indication of blade. I was almost positive that was caused by the 2nd transfer belt. But I see this model has a 2nd transfer roller.

          Comment

          • blackcat4866
            Master Of The Obvious

            Site Contributor
            10,000+ Posts
            • Jul 2007
            • 22699

            #6
            Re: Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci / ghost printing

            Yeah, I'm leaning towards transfer ... but I'm thinking about primary transfer cleaning.

            I think the marks you see on the back of the page are color registration patches that are not adequately being cleaned off of the primary transfer belt. Since the primary transfer belt is in contact with the 2nd transfer roller most of the time any residual toner on the belt will transfer to the 2nd transfer roller then get printed on the back. There may also be residue on the front of the page, but it is harder to see with the page image there. The way you can tell is if the color of the residue is brown or purple (composite black). You'll also see it on the edge of the transfer belt that you can see from the right door.

            Your thoughts about not needing service for a very long time aren't accurate. These machine work best at a minimum print volume.

            Anyway, if it is the primary transfer belt cleaning there are not any individual replaceable parts, short of the primary transfer belt assembly. A curious person might clean and re-prime the primary transfer cleaning blade (50/50 chance of improvement).

            More samples might be helpful. =^..^=
            If you'd like a serious answer to your request:
            1) demonstrate that you've read the manual
            2) demonstrate that you made some attempt to fix it.
            3) if you're going to ask about jams include the jam code.
            4) if you're going to ask about an error code include the error code.
            5) You are the person onsite. Only you can make observations.

            blackcat: Master Of The Obvious =^..^=

            Comment

            • Mulder78
              Junior Member
              • Apr 2019
              • 4

              #7
              Re: Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci / ghost printing

              Thank you all for your suggestions!

              The waste toner bottle doesn't look full, but I don't know how long it has
              been in there, so I'm going to give it a try and purchase a new one.

              Yes, this model has one transfer belt and a 2nd transfer roller.

              The color of the printed rectangles indeed is not pure K but some composit.
              If these are color registration patches, that would maybe explain why they
              are not there if I copy in one color only mode - maybe the machine is smart
              enough to realize that there's no need for color registration when printing
              only one color...

              The "ghost printing" however, i.e. contents from the pages printed before
              appearing on subsequent pages, is only that one color when printing in one
              color only mode, at all colors.

              So, I think it is almost certain that the belt does not clean properly.

              Now knowing what to search for, I found these related threads (not exactly
              the same model though):
              Kyocera TaskAlfa 5550Ci - non-printing side problem with some picture on it



              The conclusions in there comprise:
              - caused by non-genuine toner
              - clean belt blade or replace whole transfer belt
              - replace 2nd transfer roller
              - drive/clutch pack for the transfer belt slipping, replace 302LC94540

              Blackcat, maybe cleaning the belt blade would help. How difficult is
              it to get to the blade once I pulled out the belt assy?
              About cleaning and priming: Clean with alcohol, and prime with...
              "drum powder"? Of course I dont't have this.
              Someone wrote he is using waste toner, another one uses talcum.

              Well, in the service manual I also found maintenance mode U107:
              Description: Sets the cleaning control voltage for transfer belt unit.
              Purpose: Change settings if an offset has occurred due to the failure of cleaning the transfer belt.

              Encouraged by this thread:
              KM 2525 colour
              I altered the values for Belt(A). But the manual does not tell what the
              values mean. I thought: "higher values = higher voltage = better cleaning",
              but that seemed to make it worse (defaults are: 202/180/192).
              Eventually I set them to 50/50/50, and now it is much better, although
              not entirely gone. Maybe a coincidence, we'll see...

              So...please don't get mad at me, but before I take something apart and break
              things ( I read horrible stories about flapping blades shredding belts),
              I'm going to observe this further.
              Do you think, setting the values that much away from the defaults could
              break something in the long run?


              Kind regards
              Dirk

              Comment

              • sparkycivic
                Trusted Tech

                250+ Posts
                • Apr 2017
                • 348

                #8
                Re: Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci / ghost printing

                that really looks like the transfer belt isn't cleaning well, and the residue is ending up on the secondary transfer roller where it will remain until the first sheet of paper passes, then sticks to the backside of said paper.
                might need a belt, or perhaps the old belt cleaning-section can be disassembled , cleaned, and reassembled. The risk is that the auger or drive gear inside the belt cleaner is stripped or broken thus leading to buildup of toner and debris within.

                Drum cleaning/erasing issues tend to show up on the front of printed pages, not the back.

                Comment

                • Mulder78
                  Junior Member
                  • Apr 2019
                  • 4

                  #9
                  Re: Kyocera Taskalfa 4551ci / ghost printing

                  Hi there,
                  a couple of days ago I wrote a longer reply that still is awaiting approval by a moderator.
                  So meanwhile I want to thank you all for your helpful replies! (maybe this shorter post will go through).

                  Comment

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