Question about PMs

[Ollie1981]

1035's gotta say most of these run well for us, but we always were encouraged to pm on the dot.
That was then changed in the lead up to joining with our sister company who i think you work for?
Most of the intermediate calls between pm's i found were jams because the rollers were worn out, chargables, or a non pm item failing.

Now we go and change this and then that and strangely most of the parts wear out at the same time as thats what they were designed to do

Hehe, I can confirm that I did work for the company you're thinking of and as of recently we now work for the same company. But as I don't know whether our employment status would be in jeapody if our superiors learned of our participation on this board, I'm not going to state specific names, dates or places.

But as you said, funnily enough stuff does tend to last for it's quoted life, even if it goes over it tends to die very soon afterwards causing an unnecessary callout. But "fit on failure" is the mantra from the bean counters upstairs. Sometimes if the machine is being hammered I fit 'em anyway, but if my parts spend is high for the month and the copy quality is acceptable.........you know.

I always wondered about what servicing proceedures you guys followed and whose would be adhered to after the merger, I know there was similar disparity when we aquired another "brand" of Ricoh product and some techs who decided to stay in an earlier takeover.

[copytech22]

Here's my Thoughts on PM's and doing YOUR JOB WELL

I have less than 1 yr of exp. Although I ONLY have a CORE BASICS CERT from Ricoh, I work on any B&W Ricoh-Savin-Aficio 85 CPM or less, I carry (on my laptop) Every Piece of Documentation for EVERY machine and peripheral device I work on, Tech Bulls, Service, Parts, Op Mans, PSGs Toner ref charts staple guides... I get teased... So What!!! I am Informed an therefore I can do the best possable job.
A PM should be EXACTLY that, "PREVENTATIVE" maint. your decision should NOT be based on "well... the Copy quality still looks good, and the customer is NOT complaining". We are techs and Customer satisfaction advocates. You could go on a service call for lines comming from the slit glass on the customers new 9050, your copy count is 140k or more. Re-Schedule it for the 160k pm. JUST DO IT!!! You will have less problems and your customers will be happier. Plus if you read or even skim thru the manual, You WILL (as I have) Be amazed at what it TRULY takes to make a Quality Copy. I know I sound like a Halmark Card!! LOL
Any suggestions from more experienced tech, about techniques, work ethics, or just plain ole good advice. PLEASE MSG ME...

[schooltech]

One of the problems you run into with NOT doing scheduled PM's are with the technical competence of the service department. Over the years I've worked at various places and I've worked with techs that, if I were part of the office staff, I would not want them back. With some machines, as we all know, can be pushed while others are not so forgiving.

When I was service manager, we had regular discussions about which machines and customers needed to have maintenance done, as it was just easier to sometimes do them a bit early than to deal with the pissy lawyer who hasn't had good luck with the judges (no offense.)

Because I have no one go behind me, as I am the solo guy, I keep track of all service I do, and I know exactly where I'm at with all of the equipment. I generally go off of the "consistency insures quality" M.O. for my machines.

Given the various technical background and training of most all service departments, I would probably stay as close to the PM schedule as possible for the machines. Yeah, of course there are companies that don't believe much in them and then you also see many techs that are constantly 'firemen' in the field, and that's not very cost effective at an average $65.00 burden rate and have people constantly going behind someone else and crossing territories or just pissing the techs and customers off to just 'go fix it' when they can't be fixed with the current methodology.

Something as simple as not changing the plugs in a car will stress the secondary as the gap has increased over time. This secondary coil stress will eventually just burn out a coil, and with most coil-over vehicles, that can get costly. Or, just change the plugs as they show wear and the stress decreases. Obviously, this is the same with tx belts, charge rollers, etc, as this stresses their supply voltage components to have to 'work harder' to compensate for the worn components. It's a balancing act that some companies and techs do much better than others, and this is speaking from over ten years of experience and A LOT of factory training as well.

[mikadonovan]

I have ran service both ways and can assure you that performing preventive mainteneance on a regular basis is well worth the cost and effort in the long run.

[Shadow1]

Ricoh does a "PM on EM" - the machine is allowed to run untill it dies, then all the pm schedules are brought up to date. From my experience the most important thing in the machines is the charge wires and drum. If the machine has a corona as opposed to a charge roller take it out and clean it any time you service anything. (I use a piece of scotchbrite and a small pair of hemostats - other techs I know use a small (pencil style) ink eraser then clean the residue with alcohol)

I generally PM the drum/developer area seperately from the fuser - some of the fusers will run a million but the process only goes 400k. The exception is an oil roller - if the machine has one instead of a web change it (and its cleaning roller) as often as you can. Feed rollers are really dependent on what paper you're running - keep a set handy and test it out to see what they will run for you.

[Kopyrtek]

Do the pm's as they are called for.Yes you can let some go a little longer than normal but in the long run you will be better off doing them as scheduled.You save the money in not doing so many calls for things that you will take care of in a PM.

[jarhead2020]

Ricoh 700's + 1060 great machines

If you replace the oil roller and cleaner or web, vac out the entire drum unit, replace the grid, dev, feed tires on tray 1 and the LCT, cln filters on back of machine, and check the WTB and tandem fence and green handle at 300k you can get to 500K assuming the customer runs 50k a month. The parts on these machines are durable and run over if cleaned regularly. Its not a big deal to get 300k with some luck and good customers, oh yea and use hot roller cleaner if not replacing the hot roller!

1035's full pm takes about an hour and a half to two hours for me

[banginbishop]

A PM should be EXACTLY that, "PREVENTATIVE" maint. your decision should NOT be based on "well... the Copy quality still looks good, and the customer is NOT complaining". We are techs and Customer satisfaction advocates. You could go on a service call for lines comming from the slit glass on the customers new 9050, your copy count is 140k or more. Re-Schedule it for the 160k pm. JUST DO IT!!! You will have less problems and your customers will be happier. Plus if you read or even skim thru the manual, You WILL (as I have) Be amazed at what it TRULY takes to make a Quality Copy. I know I sound like a Halmark Card!! LOL
Any suggestions from more experienced tech, about techniques, work ethics, or just plain ole good advice. PLEASE MSG ME...

I understand where your coming from but unfortunaly i and many other engineers have worked for the small outfit where service budgets are tighter than a nuns crotch to say the least!

I am in the position of working for a large company but again the budget restrainsts are still there but are bit more relaxed if i go over. Services should be carried out at the correct interval to keep things running at optimum performance but when you dont control the purse strings theres not a lot you can do - yes we get told fit at the correct interval but also a wink to say keep the spend down if you can

You just can't win but just smile when you have to

Hey its just a job - but i bloody love it a times!

[Iommanxman]

Hi Guys,

Does anyone know the part number for the PM kits for the MP5000 and the MP6500? Thanks.

[Scott_Lewis]

Hi Guys,

Does anyone know the part number for the PM kits for the MP5000 and the MP6500? Thanks.

PMB246300K for the MP5500 and MP6000 series.

[Iommanxman]

Thanks Scott. I have also found out that its PMB246600K for the 600k kit. FYI.