MPC20_25_30_35_4500 drums (B223 2027)

[Prodigal Son]

Hi,

I'm getting really tired (and broke) from changing color drums in these machines way ahead of their expected lifetime of 80k copies. In average I think we're down at around 55k copies per color drum, sometimes as low as 30k. Not very good.

The problem is usually lines, the drum is worn and you an tell from just looking at the drum that the printouts are terrible. I guess I really don't need to tell you guys...

But are there any solution to this? Is there another way of getting the drum to work longer instead of just changing it for a new one?

[zico21]

By far the most common problem for us has been charge roller contamination, usually from relatively long runs of high toner coverage. It is very easy to clean the charge roller although there isn't a procedure in the service manual to describe how to remove the charge roller. The roller and its holder basically snaps in and out of place in the drum unit.

However, our experience has been that once contaminated, the charge roller tends to get dirty again rather soon. We clean the roller with Katun's Formula K or water and dry the cleaned area and use light "gust" of can air on the charge roller cleaning roller, before rotating the charge roller to clean another area. Normally we just replace the drum unit, but we are using the black drum for the color positons.

There are numerous post about this, but what you have to do is remove the connector and harness from the old color drum unit and put in on the black drum unit. You have to be careful in removing the old connector as they are now glued in place and if you're not careful the pin that positions the connector on the drum unit will break off. Once you've done a few it goes very quickly.

Cheers

[SGT_Snacks-64]

Have you been changing the Developer after 160k too? You don't normally see 'developer' copy quality problems when it's worn and sometimes can be mistaken as a Drum. I've also had problems where the Mag Roller on the Dev unit gets scratched (but Lord knows why) and the Dev unit itself needs to be replaced (I don't think Mag rollers can be ordered seperately). You'll see liness on copies when this happens.

[Llama God]

Normally we just replace the drum unit, but we are using the black drum for the color positons.

There are numerous post about this, but what you have to do is remove the connector and harness from the old color drum unit and put in on the black drum unit. You have to be careful in removing the old connector as they are now glued in place and if you're not careful the pin that positions the connector on the drum unit will break off. Once you've done a few it goes very quickly.

[SGT_Snacks-64]

Isn't the Black drum on the C2 Apollon different to the colour drums? Could just be something I heard

[Llama God]

It won't go straight in - as Zico said you need to replace the harness which runs down the side of the drum unit to the connector on the back (1 screw and an adhesive pad.)

We've been doing this for quite some time now and it's not caused any issues, even on machines doing 20k+ per month.

I believe that there's a differnet way of modifying the rear of the drum unit so that it will slide straight in, but I'm not sure what that is.

[zico21]

You used to be able to file the corner of the connector on the drum connector but Ricoh added a metal pin inside the connector that makes this more difficult. I should have also qualified my previous post that we haven't dealt with the new models (MPC2800/3300/4000/5000) yet. I would love to hear from someone who has.

On similar note, the whole PCU's for the printer version (SPC811) are relatively very cheap but you have to make a similar harness switch. Also, the fuser unit from the the SPC811 can be used in the MPC3500/4500 by moving one wire in the connector and they are very reasonably priced.

On a dis-similar note, I was bored last night and found that the Product Reference Guide for the Pro C550 /700 is out and they appear to be the MPC6000/7500 with different toner. A bit disappointing because we haven't had great luck with these in "near production color" environments with issues with charge rollers getting dirty and problems with developer voiding at the op side.

Cheers

[Llama God]

We haven't had any PCU problems on the newer models as yet, but no doubt Ricoh will be wise to the whole black/colour PCU thing and will be shafting us all once again.

Can you give us any more info on the fuser unit thing which you mentioned? That may very well be of interest...

[zico21]

Not a good night so far....Pitt Panthers lose in NCAA's by 2, now watching (slightly delayed) US losing to El Salvador in World Cup qualifying at half time. Nice day for Rooney, by the way.

No spoilers, please.

Attached will show what needs to be done. Only works in MPC3500/4500. The fuser unit also comes with the paper transfer roller which, I've been told by our Techs, will also work in the MPC3500/4500 if you break of a tab that's on the unit.

Cheers (Llama God, when do you sleep!)

[Llama God]

(Llama God, when do you sleep!)

Sleep's for sleepy people, I have no truck with it. No, in all seriousness, 5-10am at weekends and 1-8 during the week. The sorry part of it all is that I have nothing better to do than to come on here for the rest of the time!

Thanks for the info, I'll have a look at that next week.

[zico21]

Like I always told my kids when they were young, "You can't be embarrassed when your friends see you somewhere you rather they hadn't, because they are there too". Hence, we're all losers!

Good night.....

[Wishbone]

We need to push Ricoh to offer us the availabilty of the charge roller assy. on this model. It would be easy for them to offer up a part number for that but then again, they wouldn't be making near as much as selling us the whole pcu assy.

[bonnie750]

I'll add my input here. Althugh a metal pin has been inserted into the plug on the back of the pcu it doesn't prevent filing the plug down add lifting out the pin.

I clean the charge roller with T-cut or similar, Jif will do. a good clean takes 5 minutes and the cq is excellent. Obviously there would be no point if the drum was shagged.

[aabarnes1]

athena apollon pcu

I've had the same problem with these drums, I used to just swap them and chenge the harness, however I now clean the pcu at every service call (charge roller and blade) and ALWAYS change the dev on 160k. Since doing this we now get 90-100k out of the drums.

[Cipher]

We had a batch of new black drum units come in the other week and I noticed they have changed the charge roller to a tougher looking brown one that seem to be more resilient.
The TD connector also no longer has epoxy on one side of it (was a waste of time anyway).

When I compared a black and colour drum unit side by side for the MPC2800/3300/4000/5000 it looked like it could still be done, but to date I've not replaced any colour drum units on these newer models.