Ricoh 1075 - Light Copies on Big Jobs

[listsubscriber]

We inherited a customer who has a Ricoh 1075 and the machines starts making lighter and lighter copies when she runs big jobs (1000+ copies).

Her previous technician showed her service mode and 'Force Toner Add' to get the copies dark again and she has been satisfied with this method of getting her copies to be dark again. She wastes about 1-2 hundred sheets of paper, but this is the way she has done it for over a year.

What is the best way to handle this situation? We would love for the machine to add toner at quicker intervals which is the first thing we are going to try. Any other suggestions we could try? She says the machine does this even after fresh developer is put in.

Thanks.

[ivacopy]

Ricoh

Toner Supply Rate put on lower then 850mg/s (SP2209) also inspect
TONER SUPPLY unit.

[banginbishop]

ok, whats the smc report showing, dev count, pm count, vsg etc. Forced toner is not the way to go. Getting the customer to do a forced toner is shocking on the old companys standards pretty obviously dont know how to repair or look after ricoh m/c's.

[listsubscriber]

Thanks for the replies. Toner supply rate increase was our first thought also.

The maintenance counts have never been reset and customer is @ 700k copies.

[Jomama46]

Toner supply rate is probably the answer but at 700k you should inspect the toner hopper, the holes may be clogged. Remove it from the developer and tun the shaft over a sheet of paper. Make sure plenty is coming out.

[banginbishop]

print an smc 5-990 all and non default.

smc -all, look for the vsg, vsp voltages, is process contol switched on. Has the previous engineer done the td sensor again when its gone faint? has the drum been replaced? any sc codes logged?

non default will tell you if the previous engineer changed anything e.g bias charge etc.

[Schneida]

If developer and other pm items are up to date, I have had the dev drive assemblies go bad. There is a clutch in the motor pack that starts to slip, and during long runs it will start to cause light copies. The part comes as an assembly.

[msaeger]

If it's gone 700K with not parts replaced I would do the PM the developer is only supposed to go 300k. Yeah I know these go way over the recommendations but I would do that before playing toner supply rate or anything.

[fireater]

do these use a toner pump like the bigger machines? i have had the 1101 out of the box with a kink in the hose ( a simple reroute into a frame channel made the hose much straighter and removed the kink) causeing poor toner add (altho it did trip a code)

[Shadow1]

No toner pump on these - its a straight drop out of the bottle in to the toner hopper on the developer unit.

I would suspect the developer and drum do have 700k on them and the machine definately needs a good PM, if for no other reason than you need to know what you're dealing with. Second most likely cause is a a dirty ID sensor, but since you're replacing the drum anyway, it takes 2 seconds to clean that up. Third on the list is to clean the scanner optics - I have seen dirty optics cause light or fuzzy images. Its not really likely, but it doesn't cost anything to do. Only after those steps would I touch the Developer motor assembly (which includes the add toner clutch.)

These machines usually produce good images and go way beyond PM, if they've been loved even a little, but it sounds like this one has been pretty well neglected.

Annother interesting note: I suspect Ricoh has been futzing with some of the old toner formulations to save on Mfgr costs. If they even try to use something like the MP4000 formula, I predict a rapid decline into bankruptcy.

[KopyKat]

I agree with Shadow1 on all points with one addition..


listscriber....does the machine ever ASK for toner? If not, is there toner in the 'toilet bowl' at the front of the hopper unit? If not check the sensor on the right side. I've seen plenty of these go bad.

[Shadow1]

I like the toilet bowl analogy

Definately something to check, I've heard lots of other techs relpace them but I guess I've been lucky - this series machines have been my bread and butter for years and I have never seen one of those sensors go bad (although I should probably expect a service call for one now)

[Jomama46]

I like the toilet bowl analogy

Definately something to check, I've heard lots of other techs relpace them but I guess I've been lucky - this series machines have been my bread and butter for years and I have never seen one of those sensors go bad (although I should probably expect a service call for one now)

At the least it will f with your mind for a while