Solution to DC425 impacted toner?

[Guest]

I have a series of DC425-440's which all suffer the same fuser defect: after a while, the heat roller gets toner impacted on it, impairing image and fusing quality. So I've come to doing a boring round trip between all machines, cleaning their fusers every 2 months ...

I know this has been said before that these machines suffer this defect when doing < 20kcopies/month (which is indeed the case here), however I think this is a rather cheap explanation and it is simply due to an engineering defect, i.e. the absence of an oiled cleaner web in these fusers (like in the DC265/460's).

Does anyone know some way or fix around this? Does lubricanting the roller help in some way? What about different qualities of rollers; are some rollers better? Are there third party rollers available which do not suffer this defect?

I can't imagine being the only one with this problem.

Any suggestions are very much appreciated!

[Mr Spock]

The problem is not the oil or lack there of (Xerox uses a wax ingrained into the toner for lubrication), it is the "sponge" core of the pressure roller allowing it to create flat spots that allow the toner to have a surface to adhere to.

[xtech]

Thanks for the reply!

I've observed this too, i.e. flat toner spots on the pressure roller.

However, it's always a fine toner layer which gradually adheres to the heat rollers eventually. Once this layer has been cleaned away, fusing is back to normal even if the pressure roller hasn't been cleaned and has flat toner spots. Of course it's even better when cleaning the pressure roller too, but it's not the main thing as it appears; sometimes there is not buildup on the pressure roller, but there is on the heat roller!

BTW, I have one aftermarket pressure roller here which is noticably less "spongy" - I assume this has been done because of what you mentioned - but the corresponding heat roller still has build-up. Also, this pressure roller actually fuses less well than the OEM rollers (toner smears after fusing).

But isn't there anything one can do to improve this? Other brands of heat rollers than OEM? Put wax on the heat roll? Did Xerox ever "fix" this problem? Aside from that, they're superb machines.

[xcopytech]

No permanent solution for this problem.

Xerox suggest to lower fuser temperature by changing some NVM values and adjusting proper NIP pressure.

[xtech]

xcopytech: do you happen to know what should be the proper pressure and temp according to the wizzards at Xerox?

Well, too bad then I guess ... but I'm still convinced it's bad engineering from Xerox: they should have put some sort of cleaning web on these fusers, that would have solved it for sure. It amazes me they haven't updated their fusers, but I guess that way they'd sell less of them ...