MPc6000/7500 Black PCU Problems

[Llama God]

Has anybody had any issues with the black PCU on the MPc6000/7500s?

The machine in question has done roughly 240k colour and only 8k mono and I did the black PCU parts service at about 200k by the PM counter, excluding the drum. Since then it has been intermittently giving black lines across the bottom of prints which go away with a strip and vac of the PCU, although this time there was quite a build-up of toner around one end of the brush/blade area.

The drum doesn't look too great, however it's supposed to do 450k and that isn't the cause of the lines as what banding there is on it is in the centre rather than at the end.

Cheers,

Chris

[Wishbone]

These machines are a lovely turd arent' they? None of the pcu/dv parts last near as long as Ricoh likes to think. Change both pcu cleaning blades out and replace the drum and make sure your lube bar is fairly new and also do a developer change and you should be good to go.

[Shadow1]

Kinda strange I never had a problem with a 5560 even before the mountain of TSB's, but I've never had the setup on an MPc6000 go smoothly. They seem to run OK once you get the bugs worked out, but I don't know where they got the PM schedules from.

[Llama God]

These machines are a lovely turd arent' they? None of the pcu/dv parts last near as long as Ricoh likes to think. Change both pcu cleaning blades out and replace the drum and make sure your lube bar is fairly new and also do a developer change and you should be good to go.

I replaced all of these parts with the exception of the dev and drum, both of which should do 450k, roughly 60k ago. Are the PM schedules really that wildly inaccurate?

These machines have been running almost call-free until now, other than finger-trouble, a few jams and the 200k PM, and I've had very few problems with the DSc460 model either - if the "improved" life of the parts are not improved at all then it'll be a bit of a disappointment.

[Llama God]

The Ricoh product specialist has suggested either a) the end pad under the drum in the PCU or b) a faulty blade.

He also says that the drums etc are doing close to life, but he would say that I suppose!

I'm going to slam a new blade, the pad and the modified drum stay if the fault reoccurs.

For reference, this is in mod bulletin MD014029a

[Lagonda]

In know I'm going to jinx my self but I'll say it anyway, our fleet of MP C7500 are going well.
The run up guys tell me that thay haven't yet had a problem loading the dev, the secret is to really shake the dev bottle for a minute or two.
We have one in-house that the salesmen thrash pumping out flyers and I'm using it as a test-bed so I've given it very little maintanence to see how much abuse it will take and so far so good. Its just hit 400k on the same drums, dev and fuser and all I've done is rebuild the PCU's.
I'm now keeping my fingers crossed!

[Llama God]

Kinda screwing your own pooch there!!!

[Llama God]

Right, I've been back to this bugger again today and I've ordered the parts as per that mod bulletin. It's flicking toner up onto the corona and all over the blade at the front of the PCU and, supposedly, the parts in that mod will fix this.

I'm dubious myself, but I'm armed to the teeth with a Ricoh reference number if all else fails.

Edit: The mod bulletin is available at MD014029a[1].pdf if you're interested

[bier trinker]

you can change the cleaning speed of the pcu's for both black and then for all the colors SP2225 & SP2226. #'s 1-4 default for .45 crank to 1.0, then #5 set to 150000. BAM!! clean cleaning units

[stephend]

Has anybody had any issues with the black PCU on the MPc6000/7500s?

The machine in question has done roughly 240k colour and only 8k mono and I did the black PCU parts service at about 200k by the PM counter, excluding the drum. Since then it has been intermittently giving black lines across the bottom of prints which go away with a strip and vac of the PCU, although this time there was quite a build-up of toner around one end of the brush/blade area.

The drum doesn't look too great, however it's supposed to do 450k and that isn't the cause of the lines as what banding there is on it is in the centre rather than at the end.

Cheers,

Chris

Can you check the temp & humidity levels on the machine? SP 2302 and SP 2901. Removing the Peltier unit from this machine Ricoh (in my opinion) made a big mistake. Why they removed something that worked fine in 3260 & 5560?? This new 6000 works well ONLY if controlled humidity & temp. environments. I have only one customer with such an nvironment and their machine performs fine. No way to reach the 450K target but I think 250K with no major quality issues is not bad.
For all my other 6000's...different story
I found out that the air flow has an important role to play in this model.
A new PCU unit should fix your problem...Even they didn't mention it anywhere they quality on the latest units improved a bit. I think was a problem on the production line with the moulding.

[msaeger]

I haven't had a problem setting up on either but I keep hearing people say they do. I think they don't shake the developer up enough.

I think having the cq problems has a lot to do with the coverage they run. I have a few of these that they run lower coverage and they have no problems but I have a couple that run heavy coverage and they get lines all the time and the charge rollers are dirty.

They should have just used 4 coronas instead of the rollers.

[stephend]

I haven't had a problem setting up on either but I keep hearing people say they do. I think they don't shake the developer up enough.

I think having the cq problems has a lot to do with the coverage they run. I have a few of these that they run lower coverage and they have no problems but I have a couple that run heavy coverage and they get lines all the time and the charge rollers are dirty.

They should have just used 4 coronas instead of the rollers.

Of course the coverage has a lot to do with all the problems we have with C6000...but this supposed to be designed to handle the coverage . Everybody from sales was happy when Ricoh anounced this model so they oversold this models as color production printers...Why

[ptrflrs]

peltier

These machines are a lovely turd arent' they? None of the pcu/dv parts last near as long as Ricoh likes to think. Change both pcu cleaning blades out and replace the drum and make sure your lube bar is fairly new and also do a developer change and you should be good to go.

I know this is a long dead thread but just ran into this site from a google search for this machine and decided to join. yeah , I too work on these turds as you so eloquently and affectionately refer to these boxes. ( i call these turds all the time, actually) You can't polish a turd the saying goes...
Don't u love the pm kits for these? there are bulletins for the dev units and one of them says someting about entering a number from the dev unit decal into a service mode setting. Anyway, I have one in a dank basement that always has had cq issues and we have our ricoh rep working on it --for the last 3 weeks-- and as I am formally trained on the 3260/5560 and took a test online to make me officially trained on this thing as our ricoh rep reminds me that i am the only one in our outfit, I'm stuck with it. I was thinking of removing a peltier unit from a 3260 and installing it in a mpc7500 to see if maybe it might help with the humidity but i haven't checked if it has the harnesses for the 2 peltier fans and the actual peltier. Also need to check if the firmware supports it and if it even has the service modes to turn it on. anybody tried this?

[msaeger]

I know this is a long dead thread but just ran into this site from a google search for this machine and decided to join. yeah , I too work on these turds as you so eloquently and affectionately refer to these boxes. ( i call these turds all the time, actually) You can't polish a turd the saying goes...
Don't u love the pm kits for these? there are bulletins for the dev units and one of them says someting about entering a number from the dev unit decal into a service mode setting. Anyway, I have one in a dank basement that always has had cq issues and we have our ricoh rep working on it --for the last 3 weeks-- and as I am formally trained on the 3260/5560 and took a test online to make me officially trained on this thing as our ricoh rep reminds me that i am the only one in our outfit, I'm stuck with it. I was thinking of removing a peltier unit from a 3260 and installing it in a mpc7500 to see if maybe it might help with the humidity but i haven't checked if it has the harnesses for the 2 peltier fans and the actual peltier. Also need to check if the firmware supports it and if it even has the service modes to turn it on. anybody tried this?

That sounds plausible that is one of the things they took out of the 3260 which didn't have this issue.

[ptrflrs]

Can you check the temp & humidity levels on the machine? SP 2302 and SP 2901. Removing the Peltier unit from this machine Ricoh (in my opinion) made a big mistake. Why they removed something that worked fine in 3260 & 5560?? This new 6000 works well ONLY if controlled humidity & temp. environments. I have only one customer with such an nvironment and their machine performs fine. No way to reach the 450K target but I think 250K with no major quality issues is not bad.
For all my other 6000's...different story
I found out that the air flow has an important role to play in this model.
A new PCU unit should fix your problem...Even they didn't mention it anywhere they quality on the latest units improved a bit. I think was a problem on the production line with the moulding.

Hadn't seen this post but there is hope for mine yet. In the mpc6000/7500 manual sp2911 says "These SP codes control the operation of the Peltier unit. Note: The Peltier unit is not provided as a standard component of this machine. However, it is available as an option." so this might help with the one i have in the basement. Now to find a 3260 in a not so humid place to rip out the peltier unit from.