MPC 6000 / 7500 Inverter warps & Loses image density.

[turbojetboy]

Hi Folks, this is my first post, I am a Ricoh tech in Australia. We have sold hundreds of the above model in our locality and we are seeing a very large percentage of these machines exhibiting jaming in the inverters as a result of the quite obvious warping of the plastic frames within this assy. I have logged a "case" with our national support and they do admit to "some problems" with this area of the machine. We have found that the plastics become so warped as to cause problems within 3 months or 200,000 pages. I would like to know how widespread this problem really is??

The other problem that is also very frequent and affects more than 50% of our mif is the identified problem of losing density - particularly with the black. We have case logged with this as well. The machines always start off nice and strong and after only a few weeks or 20,000 approx pages the K density is about half or less! We have been following advice from national and have tried new dev, drums, entire assys, id sensors etc - all to no avail, they just keep on doing it. I have looked at all the threads here on this model range and have seen others having this problem - but with no answer in sight. Does anyone have any idea what causes this and what may fix it?

What a great site this is and i look forward to being an active member of it. Cheers.

[Vulkor]

I can agree with you on the Density. We've got two in the field and the Black just isn't very deep. I've got 9040s and 4045 Savins that make better and richer blacks.

[Shadow1]

This seems to be a VERY common problem - a large number of my machines have this problem, and I haven't found a good solution yet.

I'm sure the majority of the problems we have with these could easily be fixed with firmware, but so far they haven't done it.

Well maybe - The most heavily used box I have is set up with an 8100 Fiery and there's a tech bulletin warning if you upgrade to the latest firmware you also need to update the Fiery System Software which hasn't been released yet. (to me at least - some of you may have access to it.)

To the machine's credit, when it works it does make a better image, and it stays a lot more consistent. On the other hand I'd like to tar and feather the engineer who redesigned the PCU and made it take 3 times longer to rebuild - That was definately NOT an improvement.

[turbojetboy]

Pictures of warping

Here are some pics trying to show some of the warping I see so often on the inverters. The guide with the screwdriver next to it has been removed and placed up against a straight edge to try and show how bad it warps, this guide is the swinging one on the underside of the inverter and seems to be the one responsible for most of the jamming. Time and again I have replaced this assy and checked back with the customers and they invariably tell me that the machine has been "transformed" - jamming gone.

[Shadow1]

I've seen that guide warped, but never enough to cause a problem. Usually what I see is the duplex/invert gate is warped, but that's on top. Sometimes the D4 guide is bent and fell off the hinge pins.

That's warped worse than I have ever seen them even after several PM's. I suspect you may have some unusual heat buildup - Check your filters and make sure none of the fans are blocked. The install guide will have clearances from the back and sides of the machine. I had an old analog machine that gave me jamming problems going into the fuser until I realized it was shoved flat up against the wall and the exit for the transport and fuser fans was blocked.

[jarhead2020]

I have talked to our regional rep about the density. He said it is a known flaw in the machine and they have not come with a fix yet. A B132 machine has much better black density. About the warping that is bizzare I have never seen that much before and I service some with 600,000 pages on them or more. You guys must have got a bad lot or have overheating problems like was mentioned before. If I hear of any thing new on the density I will post it. I tried to make the machine do process control more frequently so it could keep up but that can be dangerous because the toner can explode inside of the color pcu's. On some machines it has helped however. I should have wrote down what SP's I changed.

[msaeger]

I have seen that part of the B132 warped like that and it didn't really cause a problem. Maybe you could set the auto off timer shorter ?

I don't really think the PCU's are that much harder to rebuild than the B132 was. I just wish they used coronas instead of charge rollers in all the colors.

I haven't had people complain about density just lines on the copies. I wonder if the pro c550 would be any different they did change the toner.

[stephend]

Hi Folks, this is my first post, I am a Ricoh tech in Australia. We have sold hundreds of the above model in our locality and we are seeing a very large percentage of these machines exhibiting jaming in the inverters as a result of the quite obvious warping of the plastic frames within this assy. I have logged a "case" with our national support and they do admit to "some problems" with this area of the machine. We have found that the plastics become so warped as to cause problems within 3 months or 200,000 pages. I would like to know how widespread this problem really is??

The other problem that is also very frequent and affects more than 50% of our mif is the identified problem of losing density - particularly with the black. We have case logged with this as well. The machines always start off nice and strong and after only a few weeks or 20,000 approx pages the K density is about half or less! We have been following advice from national and have tried new dev, drums, entire assys, id sensors etc - all to no avail, they just keep on doing it. I have looked at all the threads here on this model range and have seen others having this problem - but with no answer in sight. Does anyone have any idea what causes this and what may fix it?

What a great site this is and i look forward to being an active member of it. Cheers.

Welcome to this website and welcome in the wonderful world of C6000.
No problems with inverters here in W Canada bu yup black it will start fading after 20K. Try to determine what is the coverage and the environment of your customers and increase the toner supply clutch rotation for K if this the only one that cause this problem. Good luck

[Timmytronic]

Hiya. This has been covered under another thread, copier blowing toner, but to keep the density up remove the dev one way orga arm bearing at the end of the drum unit it stops the machine from dumping the dev in the system and thus can keep up with the measley 10% dev in the toners. With the lines, also in another thread under lines in copies. Solved by putting the black unit springs, different part number, onto the CMY units. Replace the wax bars first tho. 3 x the life before lines appear.

[E Winter]

It's funny but all our MPC6000 and A5560 are running under low volume condutions, that's why I haven't recognized any temperature problems at this guide plate. But I can confirm the MPC6000 has indeed weak color and black levels - even on color copy papers. Fortunately I have only one customer who has a problem with this issue but I have my own opinion and compared to most other MFPs (like the smaller MPCs or other brands) the solid colors sucks on this machine.

I also recognizes that the machine is producing way too much waste toner. Recently I had a MPC with a full waste tone box after ~35k b/w and 35k color prints (within a year). Hard to image how much $$ is literally wasted for good.

[Shadow1]

Don't forget a lot of the waste toner is overflow developer. I had good luck this winter combating the low density problem by removing the drive cam from the overflow auger in each developer unit, but during the summer they started overfilling. Don't know why it worked without overflowing during the winter, but it appears to be related to humidity. I've been playing with clipping some of the coils off that auger, and moving the tape around between overflow slots with good success, but I'll be honest, these machines were such a problem I don't have many of them left as a test base. I've managed to upgrade most of my machines to either a C900 or a pair of MPC4000's.

Using the springs from the black PCU or stretching the old ones does make an improvement, but is not a fix. I've also had good luck using the D082 charge roller assemblies - I can see no physical difference in them, but I assume there is a non-stick coating on the roller.

The extreme poor performance of this monster has been a surprise since the previous generation did so well. Now not only do they run bad they take 3 times as long to PM... and the MPC6001/MPC7501 are the exact same design - Way to go Ricoh Engineers! Take a good design, mess with it until it runs like crap, then leave the design alone until your customers buy a Canon. Same deal with the mid volume B/W boxes - they had most of the bugs ironed out just before the mp3500 - now they have 3 generations running B296 developer and toner KNOWING IT DOESN'T WORK.

...and I always thought it was impossible to fail an IQ test. Shows what I know.

There. I've vented. I feel better now.

[E Winter]

The extreme poor performance of this monster has been a surprise since the previous generation did so well.

Yeah - like you said, the previous engine was more reliable and easier to maintain. They should have kept the engine design and upgrade just the controller/panel design to the latest generation but I guess it was too tempting lowering the ready time and get some new "enviromental-friendly" stickers/certificates.... At the bottom line there is - of course - no enviromental improvement if you have to visit the machine way more often, dispose more unprocessed dev/toner.

Btw. I removed the extender wheels wich actuates the drive cam for each DV overflow auger during my last issue to see if the new waster toner bottle is going to lasts longer. The machine is running under very low volume conditions and the customer isn't really picky about the printout quality so I guess it was a good test candidate. Of course I kept the wheels to have a chance undoing the mod.

[Timmytronic]

Hi. I think the solids and especially the blacks are sharper on this machine. Most of my customers complained about the text, looking burnt out on the edges and they all seemed to do that but in this machine it seems to be much better. Doing the auger cam and changing the springs on the CMY has really made the machine good. I just need some help on my new thread...there is a ghost in my MPC 6500 / 7500. I use to service monolta and canon and Ricoh I find are the easiest to work in and sounds funny but friendly.

Good luck with the density and let me know how you get on with the auger cams off. :0)

[Timmytronic]

On my last post I meant to mention the burnt out text on the 3260 range :0)

[copier888]

study,thanks