Aficio AF-350, extremely dirty.

[Hansoon]

Aficio AF-350, extremely dirty.

This machine runs extremely dirty. I know they often do but I changed already: PCU with charge roller and cleaning blades, drum, developer and transferfilm. I did the setup as in the book and I took care to close the toner port during initialization as advised.

However after around 20K it starts again. The toner recycling coil is full with toner as if the coil cannot get rid of the toner or that the amount of toner is too large to be transported away quickly enough.

Any advise please?

Hans

[nmfaxman]

Waste toner auger will fill with toner if customer is copying with the lid up or using originals with a lot of solids.
Tighten the doctor blade gap to a .30mm to reduce toner scattering.

[zyqwiz]

They are awful machines that always run dirty even when they were new 11 years ago!

[schooltech]

Have you been monitoring all of your toner/dv/id sensor voltages to make sure that they are all in spec? If it's running dirty, you'll probably see either a few things: either the sensors are within spec and working fine, and there is something else causing it to run dirty, or the sensors are out-of-spec because one is bad and it's causing the machine to run dirty.

Yeah, they were not the cleanest machines, but mine ran pretty good, although I had to stay on the maintenance and watch the readings to make sure that a sensor wasn't bad or going bad.

[kyoceran]

by the time you have spent out rectifying Nad faults, you would be better off getting a good cheap machine like a 220 off a wholesale supplier

[Shadow1]

Aficio AF-350, extremely dirty.

And this is unusual because???

These machines were very picky about how much work they are given - 10k-20k per month any you will probably be ok. Push them beyond 20K a month and there is nothing you can do to make this pig run clean. Been there, Done that, and STILL got toner under my fingernails from it.

[dckm]

Check your drum ground. The bearing is probably shot. Shaft to ground should be less than 50 ohms.

[KopyKat]

Aficio AF-350, extremely dirty.

This machine runs extremely dirty. I know they often do but I changed already: PCU with charge roller and cleaning blades, drum, developer and transferfilm. I did the setup as in the book and I took care to close the toner port during initialization as advised.

However after around 20K it starts again. The toner recycling coil is full with toner as if the coil cannot get rid of the toner or that the amount of toner is too large to be transported away quickly enough.

Any advise please?

Hans

If your toner coil is not transporting the toner out check the mylars on the flip plate right below the coil. Replace both the coil and the flip plate.

This is not a cure for the machine being a pig...it was built that way.

Seems Ricoh went full circle on this engine series...started out with the first model being a dirty pig...got better in the middle years...and now the MP series is back to being piggies.

[Shadow1]

Seems Ricoh went full circle on this engine series...started out with the first model being a dirty pig...got better in the middle years...and now the MP series is back to being piggies.

Ahh.. the circle of life: from Pampers to Depends. Now I'm just waiting for this pig to die. Hmmm... I wonder if it has a life insurance policy - now where did I put that rat poison?

[ZeusGT]

There is not really much that you can do with this box. They run dirty and that's just what you can expect from them.

I agree with what was noted above.. Get rid of that machine and get a 2022/2027 only if you have to have a Ricoh.. if not, I would consider getting a different copier like a Minolta or a Toshiba

Cheers

[Hansoon]

Thanks guys/gal.

I offered them a much, much better designed Minolta Di-351 for a price slightly less than the quoted repair costs (I wanted myself to get rid of that Ricoh crap). They had the Minolta one day for testing but I had to pick it up again because "That Minolta is much slower than our Ricoh". WTF? BOTH machines are 35 copies/minute.

Still don't want to loose them, too many equipment, printers, copiers, faxes they have to service.

Hans

[Shadow1]

Probably the 1st copy speed - Ricoh can't be beat on the single copy speed of this machine because of the extremely short paper path.

[Jimbo1]

Expectations

I remember that being one of the first....no actually the first digital box I was trained on and thinking ..wow it's digital...they should run clean..

[Davven]

Thanks guys/gal.

I offered them a much, much better designed Minolta Di-351 for a price slightly less than the quoted repair costs (I wanted myself to get rid of that Ricoh crap). They had the Minolta one day for testing but I had to pick it up again because "That Minolta is much slower than our Ricoh". WTF? BOTH machines are 35 copies/minute.

Still don't want to loose them, too many equipment, printers, copiers, faxes they have to service.

Hans

[zyqwiz]

Don't go near any Ricoh 35/45 machines - they are all crap - either go slower or faster