I have a Ricoh CL7200 that has been printing blotchy/faded colors for several years. Over the years, I have put new PCUs, Fuser, Developing Units... but that stuff never helped, although technically they were needed because of alerts on the printer.
Years ago, possibly when this started, the transfer belt cleaning blade's spring broke so that it wasn't cleaning the belt. I didn't know what was going on so I went in there and cleaned the belt with water and then eventually saw figured out the problem and fixed the spring. I didn't realize at the time you weren't supposed to touch the belt.
It hit me that this may all be related to "contaminating" the belt so I pulled the transfer unit out and removed the belt to clean it with isopropyl alcohol. I cleaned the silver rollers, the inside and outside of the belt and blew everything out of that unit. I then found and blew clean the ID sensors and reassembled. The colors were finally solid, however the unit needed to run to clean itself of toner that was being deposited on the printer. Later that week I let the printer calibrate and then the colors were back to blotchy, exactly as before...
I just finished putting a new transfer belt and cleaning blade in the machine and re-cleaning everything. The printer is printing the same, bad blotchy colors that are very noticeable on large colored areas like charts.
I'm lost on what to try to fix this machine. I appreciate any and all help.
Nathan Jones
Years ago, possibly when this started, the transfer belt cleaning blade's spring broke so that it wasn't cleaning the belt. I didn't know what was going on so I went in there and cleaned the belt with water and then eventually saw figured out the problem and fixed the spring. I didn't realize at the time you weren't supposed to touch the belt.
It hit me that this may all be related to "contaminating" the belt so I pulled the transfer unit out and removed the belt to clean it with isopropyl alcohol. I cleaned the silver rollers, the inside and outside of the belt and blew everything out of that unit. I then found and blew clean the ID sensors and reassembled. The colors were finally solid, however the unit needed to run to clean itself of toner that was being deposited on the printer. Later that week I let the printer calibrate and then the colors were back to blotchy, exactly as before...
I just finished putting a new transfer belt and cleaning blade in the machine and re-cleaning everything. The printer is printing the same, bad blotchy colors that are very noticeable on large colored areas like charts.
I'm lost on what to try to fix this machine. I appreciate any and all help.
Nathan Jones
Comment