OKI MC853 White lines on Print Output

[Shaky]

Hi all.
I'm not a printer tech so would appreciate it if someone could offer some advice/help on whether the problem I am having is worth attempting to fix ?
Basically I have bought a used OKI MC853 Printer that is not printing very well at all (see attached image). I didn't pay much for it at all (less than £100) so I'm not too worried about having to spend a fair bit to get it working OK. It's only printed about 65K pages in total (the guy I bought it off used it at home, not in an office environment) and it does look almost brand new, no signs of excessive use at all so I'm presuming it's been well looked after. I'm also just going to be using it at home, not for anything work-related with huge runs etc.
I have found that there is a small resistor between the terminals on the transfer belt so I'm guessing that is a counter reset device and although I haven't checked the fuser unit yet, the cartridges are all compatible versions, not genuine oem. The Black drum life is at 15%, Yellow at 90% & the Cyan & Magenta at 44%. The ITB is 56% (but obviously been reset) and the fuser is 98%, although I haven't checked yet to see if there's a reset chip on that.
Finally, it is making a noise that doesn't sound right (also attached - hopefully it'll be clear enough to hear) on startup (about 10 seconds after turning on) & both A4 & A3 prints (a lot shorter period than after start-up however) which doesn't appear to be from any of the motors as I accessed the maintenance mode to run the motors individually & they all worked OK.
Would it be worth trying to clean the drums/belt first to see if anything improves (I believe from looking online that 90% IPA and a soft paper towel is the method ?) or would you experts say various parts need replacing ?
TIA
edit# I've added an individual cmyk colours A3 print if that helps. The cyan is nearly there but the others are obviously bad 😂

[blackcat4866]

Most OKI's of this variety use LED print heads that are attached to the upper lid when you open the print engine. Use a soft cloth and alcohol to wipe off any toner on the print heads. Can I find a photo? Not the same model but you'll get the idea:

LED printheads.jpg

[Shaky]

Thanks blackcat4866 I did wipe over the LED heads with some dry soft tissue paper and a bit of toner came off the yellow and magenta ones but I didn't know it was safe to use IPA on those. The instructions in the OKI manual always seem to say to avoid using any fluids and seeing as I don't knw any better, I thought it best not to risk it. As soon as I get some IPA I'll go over all the components that can be cleaned and see what the results are.

[scanmc]

As you mentioned in your post the toners were not OEM but compatible. In my experience, compatible toners in Oki machines are a death sentence to drum units.

[Shaky]

As you mentioned in your post the toners were not OEM but compatible. In my experience, compatible toners in Oki machines are a death sentence to drum units.

I know compatibles are a lot cheaper than oem a lot of the time but in my case where I don't do a lot of printing I usually stay away from them. I needed one urgently on my old Canon 724 A4 printer and could only source compatible and I noticed a definite decline in print quality almost straightaway.
One other thing I think I've noticed is that noise appears to be louder at the back of the printer where the duplex unit is.
I should get my IPA tomorrow so will set about giving everything a seriously good clean and go from there.

[Shaky]

As you mentioned in your post the toners were not OEM but compatible. In my experience, compatible toners in Oki machines are a death sentence to drum units.

So, (and don't forget I ain't a printer tech - lol) it's beginning to look to me more and more like it may well be the drum units that are at fault with this printer. I set up four A3 size full-page colour prints in photoshop, using 100% CMYK values and let Photoshop do the colour management, not the printer driver. The Cyan one does do a reasonable, almost perfect job of reproducing a solid Cyan print but the Black, Magenta & Yellow drums are terrible with about 40% being white lines.
Seeing as the OKI manual keeps pointing to the LED heads as the problem for vertical lines and all the Heads are the same part No. I decided to swap the Cyan for the Magenta and print the Magenta page. This just resulted in the same, horrible quality output. The Cyan printed almost perfectly again so I can discount the heads as the problem.
I'll still give everything a serious good clean tomorrow once my IPA arrives even though I get the feeling it's not going to make any difference so is there anything else I can try to make sure I've pinpointed the problem before I start to throw any serious £ at it ?
Thanks again for the help, it's appreciated.

[blackcat4866]

The other cause for this issue is paper dust contamination inside the developing/drum unit. Each unit has an S-blade that levels off the toner on the developing roller. That S-blade will collect all sorts of contamination which prevents toner from covering the roller completely. Aftermarket units are typically terrible. You probably already know, those units are expensive. =^..^=

[Shaky]

Thanks again blackcat4866 I've just found this video on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nemzj7t6oHc which shows someone dismantling an OKI ID unit which looks almost indentical to the type that are fitted to my MC853 so seeing as I've got nothing to lose and it looks fairly straightforward I'll have a go at the Black one out of mine and see if I can get it to some decent level of output.
I notice on that video he doesn't bother cleaning the excess toner out of the casing before re-assembling it 🤨. Would you suggest to do that ? I've got a spare few of my missus' make-up brushes I could use and I could get a compressed air can if needed. (unless that could cause damage to any delicate internals) I know to some it might seem like a lot of faffing about for potentially no useful end result but since I retired I've got plenty of spare time and I actually enjoy trying to sort stuff like this, especially when it's nothing like my old career........I like a challenge 🤣. and dismantling/cleaning is free !
I'm under no illusion that I will eventually have to spend some £ but like I said earlier, I don't want to start playing "parts darts" until I'm 100% certain I'm not going to be wasting money on items that won't solve the problem. 😉.

[blackcat4866]

Do not clean out all the toner! ONLY clean the S-blade.

[Shaky]

Another update 🤣. So I stripped the Black drum down and cleaned everything. I was quite surprised to find bits of Yellow toner inside it and the blade had a definite yellow colour to it but it did clean up well, Maybe the previous owner had tried to bodge it (unsuccessfully !) with another drum unit ? Or maybe it's a cheap, re-manufactured unit ? Whatever, after putting it all back together I did a test print and it was exactly the same as the previous pre-cleaning runs. I also give the Black LED head a good clean with IPA but zero toner came off that either.
My next idea is that because the Cyan seems to be printing pretty well, I'm going to swap the actual green tube from that one into the Black one and vice versa to see if the problem moves into the Cyan test print. At least then I'll know that the problem is indeed caused by the ID units.
Will report back and let you all know how it goes. 👍

[Shaky]

So, I reckon this machine may well be past the point of no repair 🤣. I swapped the light roller and charge rollers over between the Cyan and Black ID units and all that accomplished was a print that was half black with the white lines and half black and cyan ! Seeing as I've got the Cyan, Magenta & Yellow LEDS covered over so they can't project onto the drums, god only knows how the Cyan is getting there 🤷♂️.
The Cyan & Black ID's (I'm guessing) are compatible versions coz I can swap their positions & all that happens is as the machine fires up, it reports "Genuine OKI" four times but doesn't tell me I've got the ID's in the wrong positions. I also got a 928 error popped up but admittedly that did disappear once I power cycled.
Is there anything else you can think of worth trying or should I resign it to the bin ? 😂
##EDIT## I've added a print test page for your amusement 🤣 Makes me laugh how there's no border on the Cyan either.
##EDIT2## Unbeknown to me, when I was re-assembling the Cyan ID, one of the screw tabs broke (I hardly put any pressure on the screw either 😲) so that ID is now depositing toner on the belt regardless, hence the horrible image.

[scanmc]

As I mentioned before these machine when using compatible toners are drum killers. The only thing to really correct this is to replace all the consumable items with OEM units. You may want to put it to pasture because of the cost of repairs not being worth it. Also I did listen to your audio file from when the printer starts and I had the same basic model do the same thing and it was the fuser unit.

[Shaky]

Thanks for all the comments guys. OEM Consumables would cost more than the price of a new printer 🤣 and even compatibles comes to nearly £1k. I may as well save up a bit and buy a new unit as scanmc has suggested.
Thankfully I didn't spend much on it.