Black Smudges Appear Randomly on Prints on D010 (LD125)

[Jaxom]

Got an LD125 making these large black smudges on random pages in random places intermittently.*See attached photo for detail on smudge. This copier has barely just reach 100k prints and the drum was replaced a couple months ago. Both the fuser and drum appear to be in good shape and I'm just not sure what would be causing this problem so randomly. It's not always in that spot or even that size. Other times it will be on the top half of the page, thicker, thinner, longer, shorter. It is fused on, but since it doesn't happen on every print not sure where between the paper tray and the fuser that it appears. Any thoughts or suggestions? Going to the site on Monday and I suppose I will switch out both the fuser and the drum unit unless somebody suggests otherwise or something additional to try.

[JustManuals]

Re: Black Smudges Appear Randomly on Prints on D010 (LD125)

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[sandmanmac]

Re: Black Smudges Appear Randomly on Prints on D010 (LD125)

Only thing I can think of is that the cleaning station and auger are a little gummed up and the some recycled toner is spilling out over the seal here and there. It's a little bit more of a 'distinct' line on your sample than I might expect for that, but I don't know what else would do it. Only takes a couple minutes to take it apart and vacuum it out though.
Good Luck

[Jaxom]

Re: Black Smudges Appear Randomly on Prints on D010 (LD125)

Only thing I can think of is that the cleaning station and auger are a little gummed up and the some recycled toner is spilling out over the seal here and there. It's a little bit more of a 'distinct' line on your sample than I might expect for that, but I don't know what else would do it. Only takes a couple minutes to take it apart and vacuum it out though.
Good Luck

Thanks for the suggestion. I ended up not going that way today but I will definitely check that out first when I get there. Would be nice to be something so simple.

[Counsel]

Re: Black Smudges Appear Randomly on Prints on D010 (LD125)

I would definatly clean, also check the toner hopper and tray 1, make sure its not leaking toner down into the tray on onto the paper, and clean out underneat the transfer roller, that mark doesnt look like a typical charge roller/drum or fuser. I had one once where i found after i pm'd it there was toner just like that on the paper and that machine had that foam roller that the paper guides along when it comes out of the tray and it took me forever to figure out that foam roller had toner all over it and it was rubbing off onto the paper as it left the tray. Best way to look is to just open the door in the middle of a print job and see where the paper is getting dirty before or after the pcu, or open the door and hold the switches and run paper out the tray and see if its covered in toner before it even gets to drum.

[Jaxom]

Re: Black Smudges Appear Randomly on Prints on D010 (LD125)

I cleaned out the toner recycling bit, toner hopper, and cleaned all the rollers to no avail. That black smudge still appears. To completely rule out leaking toner into the tray Customer called today about it and the mark was almost identical to the one pictured from a week or two ago, very odd. No sign of toner leakage into the tray but to be absolutely sure I changed their priority tray to tray 2 (today, waiting to here back).

But I wonder if it could be caused by the laser unit misfiring? Or, if it was the laser unit, would it be on every page and not just random pages?

And, it appears on print jobs as well as copies so I know it's not to do with the scanner optics.

[Counsel]

Re: Black Smudges Appear Randomly on Prints on D010 (LD125)

I guess I would check the last pm on the PCU and last transfer roller, then I would also check and clean the registration roller make sure it doesnt have any buildup on it thats coming off on the paper. If its due or close for a pm I would just do it and see if it resolves the problem if its less then half pm on the PCU i would probably still open it up and clean it out, could be full of crud by the drum, it just looks to me like its picking up toner or waste before its getting fused either from the pcu or the registration area.

[Jaxom]

Re: Black Smudges Appear Randomly on Prints on D010 (LD125)

I replaced the PCU with one from another machine, still no change. Got worse for a while to being about .5 inches wide and 5 inches long. Seems to be less severe lately though.
The registration roller was cleaned the first time I was there for this problem.
I got the problem progressed through Ricoh to the TSM and his suggestion was the quenching lamp. I can sort of make things work with that theory but it'd be very odd.
Given the sporadic nature of the problem in the first place, I'm waiting for a new quenching lamp (since they are cheap) and just going to replace it. While doing so, I'm going to triple verify all the wired connections, because this is getting ridiculous.

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

[Gift]

Re: Black Smudges Appear Randomly on Prints on D010 (LD125)

This looks a bit like a clogged drum celaning but with another/new PCU this issue should be fixed of course. I also agree that it's not impossible that toner spills down to the reg roller or the tray but I think this engine isn't that complex not to find the origin and vac it out. One might think about using a compressor to blow out the machine (somewhere outside^^).

A closer look to the fuser might make sense as well. Take a close look at the entrance guides and check how the cleaning roller looks like. 100k is quite a lot if the fuser hasn't been PM'ed so far.

[ucinn]

Re: Black Smudges Appear Randomly on Prints on D010 (LD125)

This looks a bit like a clogged drum celaning but with another/new PCU this issue should be fixed of course. I also agree that it's not impossible that toner spills down to the reg roller or the tray but I think this engine isn't that complex not to find the origin and vac it out. One might think about using a compressor to blow out the machine (somewhere outside^^).

A closer look to the fuser might make sense as well. Take a close look at the entrance guides and check how the cleaning roller looks like. 100k is quite a lot if the fuser hasn't been PM'ed so far.

Flat spot on the pressure roller perhaps.