Dirty environment causing DF problems

[JayPaul]

Hello everyone,
I'm sure we have all seen machines before in very dusty workshop environments that start causing DF problems and jams. I have now been put in a situation far worse. We just sold an IMC 4500A to a customer with Autostore software so they can scan tens of thousands of pages of invoices and drawings for electronic storage.
The problem is that all of these pages have at some point been sat in their workshop where they cut and fabricate metal, all the pages have a very fine layer of metal dust/filings on them. Not enough to even see but it's there. Now after a month of scanning constantly on this machine it's pulling through 4 sheets at a time sometimes. I went out there yesterday and only just realised about the metal filings, the inside of the DF almost has a glittery metallic look to it now! So it's probably already on every roller along the way. I swapped out the torque limiter and reverse roller (to which there was a pile of this metal dust next to the old one) and cleaned it out. But even still it sometimes pulls through multiple pages at a time.
I have a few questions really... Does anyone have any idea of how to get past the problem of the metal filings? All I can think of is putting thin magnet strips inside the DF just after the belt section to pick up the metal.
Has anyone ever used the 'Page keeper option' aka the double feed sensor, does it work? Their paper is not in the best quality, some crumpled, previously stapled etc
What else could be causing it to pull through several sheets at a time?
This is A model so it is single pass DF
Any help or ideas would be great because they will not sign off on the deal (not just this machine but others without software as well) and naturally it has fallen on my head to save it

[rrrohan]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

for customers that wanna do bulk scanning Id sell them something similar to a
Canon imageFORMULA DR-C240 A4 Document Scanner

Put it on a call and charge contract. Make sure the scanner has rollers that are considered a consumable and therefore customer replace item.
Sell them a spare set of rollers.

Tell them to replace them when they start having jams and warn them that due to environment that expect to need to change these every month or so.

If they dont like that idea bid them good day.

If its anything like Australia no one charges for scanning and we have had plenty of customers who buy a copier with sole intent to do bulk scanning for the next 18 months. machine becomes profitless due to the amount of call outs to ADF issues

[Mark Bbb]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

Customer is pushing his problem to your account.
But, you should have known before what the purpose is of a machine and the situation:
dusty environement? Fluctuating temperature?
So, for a big part it is your own responsability what is happening now...
If I would been you i would search togehter with customer for a solution, by starting to inform customer about the problem.
Then i would advice customer to keep his documents as clean as possible, and search for a solution to do that:
maybe a drawer, or a map,...
Nasty situation!

[JayPaul]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

To be honest I could never have known that we were going to sell them scanning solution software with new machines. Especially not that they have tens of thousands of pages upstairs in their nice clean office that had previously been left downstairs in a dirty workshop to get covered in metal filings.
I have already told them that is the cause of problems, but for me to stand there and say hey I have found the cause of the problem I just need one of you to wipe every single page with a cloth or a stick of magnets one by one before putting them into the DF... All they will tell me is who the hell has time for that. From the sales point of view we have sold them software to save them loads of time scanning, then said actually now a month later we have found out about this metal filings problem the solution is to spend even more time cleaning pages.
I understand it is not the machines fault and any machine in the world I put in there will suffer the same problem, it is purely the environment and the paper affected by it.
The only idea I have had so far is to buy a small sheet, put magnet strips over it and put another sheet on top with magnet strips and they manually slide each piece of paper through hoping the strips take off all the filings. It would take ages but it is the fastest option I can think of, then they can stack 50 pages in DF and they would be fine.
I'm waiting for a guy from Ricoh level 2 support to call me back because Ricoh must have been in this situation before and they must have come up with some idea to help the problem.

[Mark Bbb]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

To be honest I could never have known that we were going to sell them scanning solution software with new machines. Especially not that they have tens of thousands of pages upstairs in their nice clean office that had previously been left downstairs in a dirty workshop to get covered in metal filings.
I have already told them that is the cause of problems, but for me to stand there and say hey I have found the cause of the problem I just need one of you to wipe every single page with a cloth or a stick of magnets one by one before putting them into the DF... All they will tell me is who the hell has time for that. From the sales point of view we have sold them software to save them loads of time scanning, then said actually now a month later we have found out about this metal filings problem the solution is to spend even more time cleaning pages.
I understand it is not the machines fault and any machine in the world I put in there will suffer the same problem, it is purely the environment and the paper affected by it.
The only idea I have had so far is to buy a small sheet, put magnet strips over it and put another sheet on top with magnet strips and they manually slide each piece of paper through hoping the strips take off all the filings. It would take ages but it is the fastest option I can think of, then they can stack 50 pages in DF and they would be fine.
I'm waiting for a guy from Ricoh level 2 support to call me back because Ricoh must have been in this situation before and they must have come up with some idea to help the problem.

I doubt it you will solve it like that. You must get the customer at to do the adjustments, not you!
You will never get your customer satisfied if HE doesn't take the wright steps, and that is to avoid metal parts whirl onto the paper.

[JayPaul]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

That bit is fairly easy to solve, we can get the customer to just put their paperwork inside plastic slip sheets. There are lots of different variations of that im sure they would be happy to do.
The original thousands that have already been infected are my concern now.
It's easy to say on here to other engineers 'tell the customer to do this and that and if they don't want to then screw them' but in reality we are a very small dealer and if I say this isn't my problem I can't solve it, we lose the deal and probably 8k profit and that falls mostly on me. Deals like this matter because if I said 'nah not my problem' every time I come against a horrible problem whether its software, hardware, installation or otherwise we wouldn't be able to make enough profit for any of us to ever get a pay rise.

[davel]

[skinnyb]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

You are in a no win situation at this point. You are doing your due diligence to try and solve a problem that isn't yours. If the sales rep had done their due diligence up front and researched the customer application more thoroughly, you wouldn't be in this situation and a better solution could have been found. So if the deal goes completely sideways I would make sure that is known... The old saying goes, you can't make chicken soup out of chicken sh1t.

That being said, these feeders have double feed issues on a good day with perfect originals. I have heard there is a firmware that is supposed to be coming to address the speed to help as well as some modified parts. Haven't seen anything yet though...

Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk

[JayPaul]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

I have seen there is a 'Stackability' mode that you can change which lowers the speed it pulls through paper to help stack properly upon exit (I think that is the purpose of it)
SP 6-901-001 set to 0 as default and you can set it to 1 to slow it down, incase anyone does want to know that.
Also something called a Page Keeper Type M37 that can detect when the DF pulls through more than one sheet and comes up with a jam code instead of just pulling it through as normal. Unfortunately that doesn't help with my situation.
So already the IMC range is proving to not be as amazing as originally thought?
It's true, there is no win here and no light at the end of this tunnel I already know there will not be some easy solution but it's always worth asking on here because amongst the many engineers we have seen nearly everything.
Thanks for replies

[Mark Bbb]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

I have seen there is a 'Stackability' mode that you can change which lowers the speed it pulls through paper to help stack properly upon exit (I think that is the purpose of it)
SP 6-901-001 set to 0 as default and you can set it to 1 to slow it down, incase anyone does want to know that.
Also something called a Page Keeper Type M37 that can detect when the DF pulls through more than one sheet and comes up with a jam code instead of just pulling it through as normal. Unfortunately that doesn't help with my situation.
So already the IMC range is proving to not be as amazing as originally thought?
It's true, there is no win here and no light at the end of this tunnel I already know there will not be some easy solution but it's always worth asking on here because amongst the many engineers we have seen nearly everything.
Thanks for replies

No one will have a good solution for this problem. Not Xerox, not Minolta, Canon, Kyocera, ... the problem is a dusy metal environement.
=> customer.
But 1. i understand you want to sell and earn your money...
But 2. you need to have a satisfied customer too, not promising him all the gold in the world when it's not there...

[FrohnB]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

Metal Dust/ filings will KILL any electronic!!!

My dad owns a metal Polishing Shop, and has burned through computers/ printers/ phones/ routers/ speakers/ etc. at an amazing rate. They're all magnets for the dust.
Aside from the electronics, a lot of the machinery he uses has to be cleaned out daily, as the metal dust gets into the motors and clutches, and soon enough, he'll have a dead machine.

I hate it when our salesman just put machines in place all "willy nilly", without first researching what kind of stress the machine will undergo. Especially fab shops, and welding shops!


If there is as much metal dust as you say, I would suspect it has worked it's way into the magnetic clutches, and it's going to be an ongoing problem for you. No easy fix here.

[Mark Bbb]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

Metal Dust/ filings will KILL any electronic!!!

My dad owns a metal Polishing Shop, and has burned through computers/ printers/ phones/ routers/ speakers/ etc. at an amazing rate. They're all magnets for the dust.
Aside from the electronics, a lot of the machinery he uses has to be cleaned out daily, as the metal dust gets into the motors and clutches, and soon enough, he'll have a dead machine.

I hate it when our salesman just put machines in place all "willy nilly", without first researching what kind of stress the machine will undergo. Especially fab shops, and welding shops!


If there is as much metal dust as you say, I would suspect it has worked it's way into the magnetic clutches, and it's going to be an ongoing problem for you. No easy fix here.

Machine is away from the dusty envrionement, only the originals carry the metal dust....

[FrohnB]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

Machine is away from the dusty envrionement, only the originals carry the metal dust....

I see. Then it'll just have to be cleaned really well, really often! Have you tried bumping the scanning resolution up to 300 dpi from 200? Helps a little bit to prevent double feeds, and allows for a little better stackability.
Otherwise, like you stated, the condition of the originals (previously stapled, crumpled, etc.) seems to be the biggest factor, and will be a "hard sell" to tell the customer they need to be "cleaned" before running through DF. I guess you'll just have to make frequent visits for this issue. A little job security

[slimslob]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

One thing I can think of that might help is a modified paper jogger to shake the metal filings off the paper. New one are $500 or more but you or the customer might have one around.

[Mark Bbb]

Re: Dirty environment causing DF problems

proffesional blower brush