Clogged hoses

[stephend]

Just want to find your opinion/experience with clogged hoses on 1100's, Pro 906's and Pro 907's Series. I don't want to go deeper and ask about 2090's cause those a closed chapter.
In the area where I am providing service, the climate is cold and dry. This environment tend to affect both color and black and white products.
With B&W high speed Ricoh copiers I'm experiencing a pretty high rate of clogged hoses and it looks like is not necessarily connected with the monthly volume cause I have problems even with units that are making over 500.000 /month. It looks like at least once a year I must replace hoses and toner pumps.
Did somebody found a way to reduce this machine behavior? Did turning off the toner recycling helped? I tried different settings in reducing the amount of recycling without any real success.
Any ideas appreciated!

[stephend]

Nobody has clogged hoses ???

[cobiray]

Your clogged hose rate will also be partially affected by the quality of paper used. More specifically, the amount of paper dust still in the paper. Cleaning the paper dust collector will help, but invariably some dust still gets into the toner system.

I'm not sure where you're located, but until recently the last 6-8 weeks on the east coast have been humid but not hot so people are not running aircon at as high a rate as mid summer. The air conditioning process removes humidity from the air, so it's possible you still have some humid environments even though it's not overtly apparent. I picked up a small unit that does temp and humidity to leave at accounts to show me actual environmental conditions instead of guessing. If you're having the hoses clog and are just cleaning them out, I would suggest replacing them when they clog. I started on the B070/71 once they clog they are very hard to clean out completely. I usually only clean them if I don't have replacement hoses with me.

[Hemlock]

You may want to talk to your doctor about Flomax™.

[cobiray]

You may want to talk to your doctor about Flomax™.

lols

[stephend]

Replacing the hoses is not a problem and I'm doing on a regular base but recently I had an increased number of units clogging just few months after the hoses and pumps were replaced. What kind of paper customers are using is something that we can not control

@ so Flomax is working, eh ?

[cobiray]

Replacing the hoses is not a problem and I'm doing on a regular base but recently I had an increased number of units clogging just few months after the hoses and pumps were replaced. What kind of paper customers are using is something that we can not control

I understand but if they are made aware that it does affect their up up time in the event you don't have the parts in your car stock or if you have to order them, they may be more willing to invest in the improved reliability of a higher quality (read low dust) paper. I was able to convince one of our customers that has an on demand print shop for manuals (600-2000 pages per manual) to switch to a higher quality paper when they saw how many fewer jams the machine had and how much quicker they were able to produce the manuals by having less down time due to jamming (read cheap paper). I understand it's hard to get customers to make those changes, but most places will be willing to at least try a change if you can convince them there is ROI for them.

[stephend]

Cobiray, I agree with you 1000%...but hey how many customers are present on this forum to read and understand these things? In my case neither the service managers or sales people won't get it....Many times trying to promote good quality paper is coming back to you like a boomerang The print shops in my area are ready to try plywood if they know that they will make a profit and they don't care about machines...downtime yes and they are yelling and screaming that they want it fixed "now" hahahah In 15 years as service tech and manager I think it happened 3 times when customer thanked me for suggesting better quality paper...

[df3036]

Not that it is totally related, but I have found chunks of foam clogging up the toner pumps and also in the clear cup. Sure it came from the toner bottle area but I am not about to take off 2 finishers, interposer, and GBC to find out...

[teebee1234]

You should use SP2770 and check the temperature and humidity inside the machine and confirm they're in spec (humidity should be between 15%-80%). Make sure all of the filters are clean/new as clogged ones will make the internal temp rise. We have had some customers place a dehumidifier next to the machine once we were able to convince them the environment was detrimental to the operation. Cheaper than one service call and their lost productivity.