Athena and Apollon Charge Rollers

[andym]

Are there any? Anywhere? I've just had to buy three whole drum units because of ducked charge rollers.
I have proved the charge roller at fault too. As soon as new units arrive I'm taking out charge rollers and fit them to colour units.
Boss says he is working on getting some made in China or Korea or somewhere. No luck yet.

Has anyone else had these problems?

[msaeger]

What model are you talking about I don't know the code names.

[andym]

Sorry.

MPC2500 (B230), MPC3000 (B237), MPC4000 (D027), MPC5000 (D029). Not too sure about the MPC2550(s). Not had to go too deep on them yet.

(Btw: My set of service manuals are Europe, spring 2008)

Drums are only available as units. I have mentioned in other posts that I can get compatible drums. They don't come with compatible charge rollers. The charge rollers I have to clean. That doesn't always improve them.

[Venom]

I successfully removed lube bar from PCU and didn't see build up problem on charge roller ( over 6k and copying perfect...drum has 80k on it and looks worn )

[mabawser]

As far as I'm aware you cant get the charge roller as a spare part.....obviously as this is the main fault on these machines ricoh decided to make some money by only supplying it as a unit.

The newer charge rollers clean up ok but the older ones, would hardly clean up!!

[mikadonovan]

I successfully removed lube bar from PCU and didn't see build up problem on charge roller ( over 6k and copying perfect...drum has 80k on it and looks worn )

I jumped in feet first on this problem by removing most of the plastic from the middle of the recycling auger from a brand new unit before I installed it. This was suggested on another post. I have about 2k on the unit so it's a little early to tell if it will work. I will post an update when it gets to 80K or failure.

[andym]

I have found myself changing drums unnecessarily! The drums are fine. The coating bar is no too worn, but comes in the kit so I change it. A good coating bar should make the drums last longer.

I don't see any buildup of lub on the charge roller. I started cleaning it with warm water. I've even used alcohol ! The problem does not get worse or better.

I'll see if I can find some of the test prints I did and scan them.

[zyqwiz]

The coating bar is no too worn, but comes in the kit so I change it.

Ricoh don't do a kit

[andym]

You're right. Ricoh don't do a kit.

My boss just went mental and told me not to say another word about parts.

[Llama God]

The charge rollers normally clean up pretty well to stretch the yield on these bad boys to 100k or so, depending on coverage of course. Unfortunately there are no charge rollers available from Ricoh.

Have you tried using black PCUs instead of colour? I've heard that this can be done, but I'd ever do anything like that!

[zyqwiz]

You're right. Ricoh don't do a kit.

My boss just went mental and told me not to say another word about parts.

What are you on about? Is this some stupid sales thing to sell PCU rebuild kits that your company just happens to sell?

[andym]

At the risk of my boss giving me a sex change with a butter knife. I have tried Black PCUs. I removed the charge roller and fitted them to the colour unit. Why damage the black unit, trying to make it a colour unit when all you have to do is unclip the offending roller and clip it in?
I've had a go at cleaning the charge roller. I finally found something that brings it up nice. Just have to test it now. It'll either be sh1t hot or just plain sh1t.

[andym]

What are you on about? Is this some stupid sales thing to sell PCU rebuild kits that your company just happens to sell?

Not trying to sell anything. I'm just wondering if anyone else is having problems with charge rollers and has come up with a solution.

[msaeger]

If you take the charge roller from a black unit and put it in the color unit then what do you do with the black one with no charge roller ?

OK so the color one costs 4 times what the black one costs so if you put black units in instead of the colors and they only go 20K wouldn't it end up costing the same to operate as if you did everything by the book and all the drums lasted 80K ?

I have been just using the black units they look the same to me and doing the mod is easy enough.

[Llama God]

I agree with Msaeger, just hack away at the connector on the back, bang in a black PCU, sit back and relax for the next few months.

In reality though, you can spend the few months you've saved buggering about with the dev units on some MP4500s instead!