Kyocera General Question

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

Generally speaking the issue hasn't been transfer voltage, it's been fusing. And yes, selecting the correct media type works every time, if you can convince your enduser to do so.

Kyocera TA 3550ci Lower half of Color Copy Black not fusing

The best way to clear up the Media Type confusion is to rename the Custom Media types to match the actual gsm paper weight:

Kyocera TA 3550ci Lower half of Color Copy Black not fusing

Kyocera Ta 3501i New Fuser issue

I've never had to use U106.

If you've never had to use U106, I won't worry about it. Just for discussion purposes, it appears to me that that secondary transfer voltage is preset for every type of paper that you select (exp. cardstock) and if it isn't tranferring correctly that you can change the preset individually for every type of media. I could be wrong.

With that said, I'm moving on from U106.

PS - Thanks for more valuable information.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

Generally speaking the issue hasn't been transfer voltage, it's been fusing. And yes, selecting the correct media type works every time, if you can convince your enduser to do so.

Kyocera TA 3550ci Lower half of Color Copy Black not fusing

The best way to clear up the Media Type confusion is to rename the Custom Media types to match the actual gsm paper weight:

Kyocera TA 3550ci Lower half of Color Copy Black not fusing

Kyocera Ta 3501i New Fuser issue

I've never had to use U106.

Wow, I just read thru the threads that you posted. That was one hell of an education on media types, fusing and little tricks to help the enduser make the right selection.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Kyocera General Question

For any of that to work, you need two things to happen:

1) You need to have an enduser that uses a wide variety of media. Most Kyocera users use primarily 75gsm Plain paper.
2) You need an enduser that cares enough to:
a) convert whatever # weight to gsm.
b) set the correct media type in the desired tray
c) set the correct media type in the print driver

Thus far, there have been exactly (3) such Kyocera endusers that cared enough.

One additional comment: For fusing semi-gloss (avoid full gloss) +1 level heaver media setting.

=^..^=

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

For any of that to work, you need two things to happen:

1) You need to have an enduser that uses a wide variety of media. Most Kyocera users use primarily 75gsm Plain paper.
2) You need an enduser that cares enough to:
a) convert whatever # weight to gsm.
b) set the correct media type in the desired tray
c) set the correct media type in the print driver

Thus far, there have been exactly (3) such Kyocera endusers that cared enough.

One additional comment: For fusing semi-gloss (avoid full gloss) +1 level heaver media setting.

=^..^=

I'm with you on endusers. Years ago, about 70% of all print shops on the coast were customers of mine. They seem to have a much better understanding of why they need to select the right type of media. Some of them were also big pain in ass. The owner of one print shop pulled out a jeweler's loop to show me that he could see the different colors on the edges of the text. You couldn't see it with the naked eye, but thru the loop you could. I finally had to tell him that this wasn't his million dollar printing press that he was running...it's a copier.

I've never set up the custom media types but I am gonna do it because I know at some point it will come in handy. Thanks again, blackcat.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

Just a quick follow up:

From what I've learned from blackcat and from KYO, there are 2 ways of troubleshooting a problem. Blackcat has found his own way of diagnosing a problem and I won't cover it here because he posted it in this thread. To be perfectly honest, I prefer his method as it's probably easier & quicker.

However, there's a lot to be gleaned from KYO's method of looking at the data on the maintenance report. This data really allows you to do a deep dive and further isolate the problem. I would use this method in some situations. This data tells an important story. The only drawback is that some of this information isn't readily available in the service manual. Again, to be perfectly honest, it may not be a bad idea to look at this data from the jump.

What I'm fairly certain of is that it's not a bad idea to know both methods. But KYO's method is dependent on having a firm understanding the data.

[bsm2]

Re: Kyocera General Question

Most problems on Kyocera are common you will see over and over again for bad imaging Bad fuser, Dev units, Drum units and transfer belts.
Other problems are also common feed tires broken gear etc......



The manual was written by engineering who never tested the machine in field.

Example a C code the manual says this, but something else caused the trouble code that's Not in the book

Kyocera Design in Japan
Build in China
Tested in the USA

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

Most problems on Kyocera are common you will see over and over again for bad imaging Bad fuser, Dev units, Drum units and transfer belts.
Other problems are also common feed tires broken gear etc......



The manual was written by engineering who never tested the machine in field.

Example a C code the manual says this, but something else caused the trouble code that's Not in the book

Kyocera Design in Japan
Build in China
Tested in the USA

I agree with that. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING takes the place of EXPERIENCE. But anyone that has worked on copiers for any amount of times knows that sooner or later we're gonna run into a problem that kicks our ass. When the shit hits the fan, the more information you have, the better.

Personally, I can't have enough resources or information.

Would you like to weigh in on how you read the data on the maintenance report to help you identify a problem? I'd be interested in hearing it. And I'm not talking about the normal error codes.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

I had to deliver a waste toner container to an account that was giving me blue backgrounding problems a couple of weeks ago. I replaced the cyan DV to correct. I was able to confirm what KYO told me. If you look @ U468/V-correction, it does indeed tell you whether or not the last 16 calibrations failed/passed.

When I arrived V-correction was showing that the 15th & 16th calibrations failed. So I ran calibration twice while I was there and V-correction (after I converted to binary) read 1111 1111 1111 1111. It was reading 0011 1111 1111 1111 prior to performing calibration twice. This is not in the service manual.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

I'm on U155/Waste Toner full/almost full

So, under U155 you can check the status of WTS1 & WTS2. The manual doesn't tell what the status should be. Not that I could find. I had to do a little experimenting.

If you look at the waste toner bottle, there are 2 windows on the neck of the bottle. If you're looking at the neck of the bottle like it sits in the machine. there's one window on the left and another on the right. A light shines thru the windows and if toner isn't blocking the light, the value of WTS1 & WTS2 = 0 for both. If toner is blocking the sensor the value = 1. I did this by using a small piece of black electrical tape.

But that was only for STS1. I wasn't able to change the state of WTS2/near full. I'll keep working at it.

EDIT: My goal is to be able to manipulate the value of both sensors from 1 to 0 in order to determine if one of the sensors are bad (or broken wire/loose connection/bent pin, ect.) or the problem is with the waste toner bottle itself.

EDIT: You can also trick the sensors by putting a white pience of tape on the windows. So, I don't guess the light is shining thru the windows, it's reflecting off the windows back to the sensors. White reflects light. Black absorbs light. Right? Right.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

U156 is an interesting one. This deals with toner replenishment for C, Y, M, K. The only reason I can see for changing the value is if a customer were running pages with high toner coverage and the machine couldn't replenish the toner fast enough. But I would have to run some tests to see how/if this affects the calibration process. I don't know if it's worth the time and effort but I'm gonna do it anyway. You never know...it may come in handy one day and I'm taking notes for every thing I'm doing.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

I've been running what I think are some interesting tests on the following machine:


- Kyocera 3551ci
- 100k on the machine.
- Genuine toner


Test: Transfer Belt.

With a good transfer belt I checked the following data:

U465/Stress --- Value = 2693
U465 - Stress. It must be higher than 2600. If the number is lower, the belt is worn or damaged.


Next I replaced the transfer belt with a known worn belt. U465/Stress = 2173. The machine is telling me that the belt is worn and needs to be changed. The colors on the test charts also look dull and kinda washed out.


Next test: This is per the service manual so I'm not talking out of school.

1. Check if the belt is bleached
on its surface.
Check the value of U140
MagDC after conducting
calibration.

2. Increase the U140 MagDC value if the U140
MadDC value has not reached at its maximum
even though the belt is bleached on its surface.
If the MadDC increased to its maximum won't
cure, replace the intermediate transfer belt
unit.

The default value for U140/DC Bias = 130 for each color

I increased the value for each color to 155 and printed out the test charts again and they looked beautiful. I think they even looked better than with a new transfer belt.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

See charts below for values of U465/Stress with good and bad transfer belt:



Stress.pdf

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

One final note about adjusting U140/DC Mag Bias.


While the manual says to adjust U140 to compensate for a bleached/worn transfer belt, I find little practical value in doing this other than a temporary fix if you're waiting on a new transfer belt to arrive. And here's why....


When you change the value of U140, it does indeed improve the print quality greatly. But any changes you make to these values will be written over the next time the machine performs automatic calibration. The only way to avoid this is turn auto calibration off.


On a side note, by kicking up the DC Mag Bias , I noticed that I can get better fill in for black compared with auto calibration. The 3551's seem to struggle to produce a nice, solid composite black.

[tsbservice]

Re: Kyocera General Question

One final note about adjusting U140/DC Mag Bias.


While the manual says to adjust U140 to compensate for a bleached/worn transfer belt, I find little practical value in doing this other than a temporary fix if you're waiting on a new transfer belt to arrive. And here's why....


When you change the value of U140, it does indeed improve the print quality greatly. But any changes you make to these values will be written over the next time the machine performs automatic calibration. The only way to avoid this is turn auto calibration off.


On a side note, by kicking up the DC Mag Bias , I noticed that I can get better fill in for black compared with auto calibration. The 3551's seem to struggle to produce a nice, solid composite black.

They are set to the values for a reason. I was thinking about change any voltages image related and came to conclusion NOT to touch them. Unless machine is screwed badly already. Not on Kyo though...

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Kyocera General Question

They are set to the values for a reason. I was thinking about change any voltages image related and came to conclusion NOT to touch them. Unless machine is screwed badly already. Not on Kyo though...

Yes, the values are set for a reason. And that reason is that they're set during calibration. The values are constantly changing to compensate for wear and tear to the DV, DR, belt, ect. But you're not gonna hurt anything by changing them.

Like I said, the machine will overwrite any changes made by a tech if you run calibration or the next time the machine does an auto calibration. Nothing to be scared of. That is, unless you turn auto calibration to off...then you're gonna have a problem until you turn it back on.