Ricoh 171SPF Print quality is faint/light

[Guest]

Hi,

I have a Ricoh Aficio 171SPF and it was working fine until recently.

Whenever I do a photocopy or print a few pages the print quality is bad. I tried replacing the toner - no luck. I even replaced my drum with another drum from a similar machine - no luck. Then I tried going into the service mode and forcing toner supply at least 50 times and still the pages are being printed poorly. You can barely make out what is on the sheet of paper.

How can I fix this problem?

[sore]

Re: Ricoh 171SPF Print quality is faint/light


try to clean laser unit (9)

[ruben]

Re: Ricoh 171SPF Print quality is faint/light

Then I tried going into the service mode and forcing toner supply at least 50 times and still the pages are being printed poorly.

Now you've ruined the developer, replace the PCDU.

If you are engineer I am appalled by your fault finding skills, if you aren't one then hire one next time.

[slimslob]

Re: Ricoh 171SPF Print quality is faint/light

Then I tried going into the service mode and forcing toner supply at least 50 times and still the pages are being printed poorly. You can barely make out what is on the sheet of paper.

Now you've ruined the developer, replace the PCDU.

If you are engineer I am appalled by your fault finding skills, if you aren't one then hire one next time.

You might be lucky and have a problem with the toner add system. If the toner is not making it from the bottle to the PCU, you have not drastically over toned the machine, which would require replacing the developer. I have had problems with these entry level models where the toner bottle does not fully engage the toner clutch coupling and as a result the toner bottle does not rotate. Remove the paper exit/power supply cover and watch the toner bottle while you do one forced toner. If the bottle is not turning, push back slightly on the bottle and see if it now turns. If it still does not turn, you have a problem with either the toner clutch or the coupling.n Of course if you have drastically under toned the developer to the point of depletion you may still have to replace the developer.

[Jhonjon]

Re: Ricoh 171SPF Print quality is faint/light

Hi,

I have a Ricoh Aficio 171SPF and it was working fine until recently.

Whenever I do a photocopy or print a few pages the print quality is bad. I tried replacing the toner - no luck. I even replaced my drum with another drum from a similar machine - no luck. Then I tried going into the service mode and forcing toner supply at least 50 times and still the pages are being printed poorly. You can barely make out what is on the sheet of paper.

How can I fix this problem?

Make sure that the mirrors are clean even in laser unit. Try to test the whole imaging unit to lessen your trouble shooting. Maybe you have a bad developer, DV unit it is not mixing the toner properly or maybe gears in it. Good luck!

[rthonpm]

Re: Ricoh 171SPF Print quality is faint/light

One important factor not mentioned was whether the machine is using OEM toner or some kind of generic. I've had customers try to skimp on toner only to have all kinds of flaky issues.

It may be a good thing to try a new PCU as well as putting a new bottle of OEM toner in, but with the hopper still slid out, hold the back of the bottle and turn the handle down to get the machine to feed and then slide the hopper back in. I vaguely remember Ricoh even posting that as a potential workaround for a toner supply issue for the MP161.

Sent from my BlackBerry using the Android app.

[mongo]

Re: Ricoh 171SPF Print quality is faint/light

If the internal prints are faint ( print the count list) and you tried another PCU with the same problem , the transfer roller springs might be gone or out of place or the laser need a good cleaning. If the internal prints looks fine its in the optics. Mongo