ARBC320 poor copy quality.

[blackcat4866]

I agree with wazza. I had a couple dozen Whales and few looked this good. You did a great job of calibrating it. It takes a lot of patience. Congratulations! =^..^=

I had a former longtime tech just email me this morning about this and mentioned that it could be a memory issue as well. Any thoughts on that?

No way is this a memory issue. If you have ICU memory problems, the color testchart copy will look completely distorted, with either missing parts or sections in the wrong place. Its an obvious fault. If you have MFP memory problems, the machine will either sit there ripping for an extended period of time, or simply drop the job (like its hot) out of its memory and clear itself.
I assure you this is no memory issue. Had too many c/q calls on these boxes to know that for sure. What everyone has already said about the machines ability to match any sort of decent quality is totally correct. Its already been mentioned that the toners can cause this. I know you said you put new ones in the machine, but I've seen too many bad ones out of the box myself.
This is an LED printer, not laser, so getting decent quality on a constant basis is difficult.
As for box 7 on the testchart, either adjust sim 46 as jprecht has said, and check the exposure settings in system settings is default.
How long will this last............ I've always found that those cartridges start playing up not long after installing them, to some degree. Either blockages around the mg roller causing fine void lines lead to trail or cartridges seizing up causing void bands front to rear. The calibration levels will last quite a while, although once the toners start playing up and the transfer belt ID sensor cannot read the patches correctly due to poor toner coverage, the calibration quickly changes.
This is a series of machine that cannot be placed in a color-critical environment, nor would you want to not have this on contract because too many half-used, faulty cartridges equals angry clients.

As I've said earlier, what you had before the latest cartridges, and what you have now is bloody great. You've done a great job in getting this box to that sort of quality, and although you were warned about attempting the focus & skew adjustments and what a PITA it is to do, you've done really good. Leave it as it is, dont touch it anymore. You're only going to return soon anyway with other c/q issues.

[jprecht]

I'd say you are pushing the limits of this box, with your test prints. when you say you recalibrated what sims did you use? your exposure ajstments are in sim 46. but you can change "other things" as well. when you swapped the new toners did you recalbrate each color? these boxes have a tendency towards red / yellow you can only tweak them so far. good luck!
jon

[bdcrandall13]

Ok.... just recalibrated again, ran a bunch of test prints to compare with after we made a few more adjustments and most everything looked ok. it was just when we ran anything with a really light shade of any color that you noticed some defects, especially grey. Everything still looked a tad bit yellow.
Like i said before, we have an ARBC260 here as well but do not use the color part of it at all. But we decided to swap out cartridges just for the hell of it, even though brand new ones were already in the BC320. Here are the results... Notice the green. Yellow and cyan blend much better. There is still a little cyan but it is much much better. This is a change made only by changing the toners. It really psises me off that we've spent all this time messing with this machine only to have the biggest problem caused by peice of sh*t cartridge design. The sharp test chart down below would be considered acceptable to me on one of the newer MX machines. Who knows how long it will last though...

64-1-15_001.jpg64-1-15_004.jpg64-1-15_002.jpg64-1-15_003.jpg64-1-15_005.jpgsit chart copy_001.jpgsharp test chart copy_001.jpg

[bdcrandall13]

While working on this yesterday and adjusting the focus for over an hour, getting it to where it was almost spot on, then printing the green test patch and there being no change made me realize that I may not get it any better. I have an ARBC260 here in my office that we use as a BW printer that is actually worse off than this one it. When looking at the Sharp color test chart print i noticed that the color exposure boxes are filled pretty good on the 1st line. From what I remember from training on the MX series is the bottom line, number 7, should not be copied at all. Can I manually tone down the exposure? How difficult is that? I might be able to get somewhere by just turning down yellow as well, that may help the grey turn out better anyway.
I had a former longtime tech just email me this morning about this and mentioned that it could be a memory issue as well. Any thoughts on that?
Thanks again guys for all the help.

[jprecht]

Hi, when you say you "recalibrated" did you mean your "procon ast. or "forced procon" sim 44' 2 or 4 ? also hows your humidity level around the box? down here in the gulf coast we have ALOT of transfer issues esp wth color toners. Hopefully you r using oem As This box has "issues" wth aftermarket toners. I have had some interesting "variances" with these "junkers" especially with "fill".
Frankly I like "wazzas" response, and this box is NOT going to give you the DPI your cust probably wants, without everything new /oem /ect. Wishing you the best!!! jBear

I have to congratulate you on getting it as good as it currently is.

As I've said before, you are going to struggle getting this good enough for your picky client. What you have got right now is about as good as you'll get, even with brand new consumables & being fully calibrated, with focus & skew adjusted.

The only thing left to do, is calibrate the ID sensor with the jig to give you a better shot at a proper grey. Otherwise, I've gotta say, what you have now is really, really good for that machine. Trust me. You'll go crazy trying to get this better than what it is now.

If you notice the solid green page, you'll see the lead edge is more solid than the rest of the page. That distance of darker area is one rotation of the mag roller on the toner cartridge, and its the cyan toner that is causing that. You can just see it in the solid cyan page. This is totally normal. I've seen that alot. Cant get any better without changing cartridges..... yet again.

[bdcrandall13]

OK. I did attached a bunch of pictures to let you see whats going on. We cleaned the LED's and we tried to focus the lasers as best that we could and got some good results using 61-4. I posted a before photo and yellow, cyan and black were way off. We got them to look just like magenta which is almost perfect. We also recalibrated after we got done. Yellow seems to still be dominating the other colors in most copies/prints. If you look at the grey patch on the test sheet it has a yellow tint. There is also small cyan lines in it. Not sure if I can do anything for that.
When you look at the test prints with the small boxes both yellow and cyan end in different spots. This causes the green to come out wrong. The customer is printing something with a green background so i cant hide it.
One other thing i noticed is when printing a test pattern of solid yellow or cyan it had a series of marks along the lead edge. I attached samples of that as well. You can really see it when looking at the green solid test pattern.

laser focus before.jpgafter adjust.jpgb.crandall@officesolutionsinc.biz_20110203_203133_007.jpgb.crandall@officesolutionsinc.biz_20110203_203133_008.jpg

I knew cleaning the LED's would help somewhat, especially the yellow.

We dont have the 320 machine of the Whale series here in Australia, only going as high as the ARC262M (which is the model before yours). Judging by the 22-6 prints, your firmware is very old. Even on our 260 & 262M machines, the firmware versions are much higher on virtually all items. There is a firmware upgrade a few years ago to help with overtoning yellow. I would highly recommend a firmware upgrade. Firmware upgrading a Whale is annoying, with the use of a level converter device, plugged into the ICU board. If you need some instructions on this, let me know. I'm sure its the same procedure on the 320 as it is for the rest of the Whales.

Another thing I've noticed is the amount of F2 codes recorded. The majority of the F2 codes you have are related to halftone correction. This is done in the Transfer Belt Unit, as it contains the process control/halftone sensor. Are these still there from before you changed the transfer belt or coming up now?
Have you calibrated the transfer belt sensors with the ID sensor jig? (part number CPLTM6305FC01) Sim 44-13. This definitely helps with getting a better grey.

With the LED's cleaned, new drum units, toners & transfer belt, fully color calibrated and the problem is still there, print out the LED focus/skew pages in 61-04. You can print out each color separately, while working just on that color. Attach those prints.

Make sure the optics/mirrors are spotless. I've always found that helps alot with the Whales. The MX colors dont matter as much as they compensate for a minor level of dusty optics.

The samples from your machine are OK, just abit out of focus. I have to tell you that you'll never get this machine copying/printing perfectly. There will always be a slight issue that only you as a tech notice, but the client wouldnt pick.

[blackcat4866]

On the first file:
You may be able to improve focus on magenta & black. The yellow color registration is off. Maybe try the bias & charge adjustment? You'll need the pigtails that plug into the board. =^..^=

[bdcrandall13]

Ok... I cleaned the LED's. It did seem to help the yellow. Although now everything seems to have more of a yellowish color. See the attachments. The grey looks especially bad. The cyan seems to be more of the problem though. The customer tried to print their green images and it still looks similar to before, not much better if better at all.
We started out by cleaning the LED's, then swapped all cartridges. Recalibrated copy and print. Not much change except in yellow. Then replaced drums. Calibrated again. No noticable change. We then changed the color definition and calibrated. No change except everything was more of a blue tint. I also attached a copy of the 22-6. Any additional input is appreciated!
Thanks


b.crandall@officesolutionsinc.biz_20110128_180728.pdf
b.crandall@officesolutionsinc.biz_20110128_180759.pdf
b.crandall@officesolutionsinc.biz_20110128_180728.pdf
b.crandall@officesolutionsinc.biz_20110128_180759.pdf

[bdcrandall13]

Thanks guys. Will give it a try today!

Use caution if your going to try the LED skew & focus adjustments.

Start with four new cartridges. Read the manual carefully, and make very small adjustments. I've done these adjustments many times, and you'll spend at least two hours, and the image quality may even look better when your done.

See how much improvement there is with new cartridges. =^..^=

Yeah mate...... completely agree.
Still give the LED units a good clean, as the samples above show yellow to be most faded. This is common, even when using genuine supplies.

[blackcat4866]

Use caution if your going to try the LED skew & focus adjustments.

Start with four new cartridges. Read the manual carefully, and make very small adjustments. I've done these adjustments many times, and you'll spend at least two hours, and the image quality may even look better when your done.

See how much improvement there is with new cartridges. =^..^=

I've had a lot of experience with the Whale series.

I wouldn't touch the LED focus screws with those samples, as the solids are quite good. You can cause more problems than you need, as well as alot of time wasted if you start mucking around with the LED focus adjustments if you haven't done it before. Its very touchy & quite tricky to get right. 99% of the time, you dont need to touch that adjustment, as its either a drum, toner or LED issue.

Thats my next point.....

If your drums & toners are good, I can see that the yellow LED in particular needs a really good clean. That is usually the LED that causes the most problems, as well as image quality problems like this, because its right next to the fuser, and toner tends to get 'baked' onto the LED surface, causing a poor discharge of the drum surface in areas affected the most.
You need to take all drum units, toner & belt unit out, get a cloth with a soft cleaning solvent and really wipe the LED surface quite hard (dont worry, they are spring loaded). You will see alot of toner residue come off them, especially the yellow LED.
Dry the LED's really well. Then reassemble & run a full colour calibration as normal.

This will come up really good. Even with that being said, a faulty toner will still do similar issues of weird faded prints, even if the MG roller looks really good. The toners are a crazy design, and you often have alot of problems with them.
Plus the fact its a low-res LED machine, not a fine dpi laser.