Print quality problems - Ricoh MP C4503

**itassist** · 01-10-2020

Originally Posted by GIUBOSS

You offer him two options; one for general cleaning with the time necessary to overhaul the drum units and developments and probably works without a heavy expense but the quality obviously will not be optimal and will not last as if it were replaced. In case you replace the most used or defective drum. In the second solution, instead, all the consumables that are exhausted as maintenance (to be strongly recommended) are inserted. The customer will decide.

Thanks, that's what I've done. They asked me to replace the Cyan PCDU and keep an eye on the Magenta, since it's got the same age.

Unfortunately this printer is used to print restaurant menus on heavy paper, lots of colours and repetitive images, so the 310,000 copies are probably not a good indication of how much the printer has actually gone through.

**JayPaul** · 01-10-2020

Also just to mention, ordering a whole PCDU is so much more expensive than ordering a PCU and the Dev unit separately. Problem for you is it takes a screw driver a bit of experience on these units to put the PCU and Dev unit together.
Does your toner guy sell them as original parts or are they compatible PCU's? If you guys are hammering colour on thick paper, you are correct parts will wear far more than printing emails on 80gsm paper. You could honestly save money leasing a machine with service agreement, you may think ahh that's what they all say but i'm not in sales and I wouldn't be making any money out of it because it's not my company selling you anything. Have a look around at least, you probably have 2 dealers within 30 miles of you.
EDIT - Just noticed you are in London, so probably way more dealers within 10 miles of you and Ricoh have strong presence there.

**itassist** · 01-10-2020

Originally Posted by JayPaul

Also just to mention, ordering a whole PCDU is so much more expensive than ordering a PCU and the Dev unit separately. Problem for you is it takes a screw driver a bit of experience on these units to put the PCU and Dev unit together.
Does your toner guy sell them as original parts or are they compatible PCU's? If you guys are hammering colour on thick paper, you are correct parts will wear far more than printing emails on 80gsm paper. You could honestly save money leasing a machine with service agreement, you may think ahh that's what they all say but i'm not in sales and I wouldn't be making any money out of it because it's not my company selling you anything. Have a look around at least, you probably have 2 dealers within 30 miles of you.
EDIT - Just noticed you are in London, so probably way more dealers within 10 miles of you and Ricoh have strong presence there.

Thanks, discussions about leasing the machine do come up every now and again, but the option is generally dismissed because you can easily compare price per page versus cost of toners if purchased separately, but it's much more difficult to include in the equation cost of parts like fusing unit or drums that may or may not (but in the end do) fail after 300,000 copies (I think I'm talking psychologically here).

Back to your question, I have just looked at this website (I'm not sure if I am allowed to post links) Wide range of products for home and office,

They claim to be Ricoh originals and they did mention that the PCDU may arrive as two separate units (PCU and Dev unit). I did replace the black developer last week and it went well (need to remember not to wear white shirts next time). This probably deserves another thread, but the reason why I had to replace it was because one of the gears was basically flat and was not turning. Couldn't replace just the gear and had to purchase the whole developer unit.

**JayPaul** · 01-10-2020

Well it's like buying a second hand machine outright and only paying for call outs when needed vs the cost of a 3-5 year lease. If you are lucky you get a machine that just goes the distance without many call outs, if you aren't lucky you have to dish out far money money on call outs and parts. It's almost like insurance but an insurance you know you will be using.
Ok the gear shaving off the back of the dev unit... I will assume you also must empty the waste toner bottle yourself? Just make sure when you pull it out/slide it back in again that the little plastic arm towards the back end of it does not catch on anything and break. If it does, the waste toner bottle will fill up, but the machine won't realise and keep trying to fill it more, clogging up the tubes running along the machine. Gears then can't turn properly and shave off the teeth of the gears turning with them. Highly unlikely but it just rung a bell in my head when you mentioned flat gear.

**fshead** · 01-10-2020

Originally Posted by JayPaul

Well it's like buying a second hand machine outright and only paying for call outs when needed vs the cost of a 3-5 year lease. If you are lucky you get a machine that just goes the distance without many call outs, if you aren't lucky you have to dish out far money money on call outs and parts. It's almost like insurance but an insurance you know you will be using.
Ok the gear shaving off the back of the dev unit... I will assume you also must empty the waste toner bottle yourself? Just make sure when you pull it out/slide it back in again that the little plastic arm towards the back end of it does not catch on anything and break. If it does, the waste toner bottle will fill up, but the machine won't realise and keep trying to fill it more, clogging up the tubes running along the machine. Gears then can't turn properly and shave off the teeth of the gears turning with them. Highly unlikely but it just rung a bell in my head when you mentioned flat gear.

to me this series 03s from mpc3003 are solid boxes and if you keep them clean run well.
If you dont clean them,clean filters and fuser guide you will have issues.
You seem like a nice guy for an IT guy as usually by now we are telling him to take a walk...
If you pull all drums,ITB unit you can see how each drum looks..
And then you can wipe the inside with a damp soft cloth..
There are a bunch of things whenever i pick up a machine.
Not sure how tech savvy you are,as you can muck something if not careful

**itassist** · 01-10-2020

Originally Posted by fshead

to me this series 03s from mpc3003 are solid boxes and if you keep them clean run well.
If you dont clean them,clean filters and fuser guide you will have issues.
You seem like a nice guy for an IT guy as usually by now we are telling him to take a walk...
If you pull all drums,ITB unit you can see how each drum looks..
And then you can wipe the inside with a damp soft cloth..
There are a bunch of things whenever i pick up a machine.
Not sure how tech savvy you are,as you can muck something if not careful

Thanks, ages ago I started my career by repairing computers in a small town shop, where customers don't want to be told 'you need a new one'. I'm more on the networking-side of things now but we do have a handful of printers here and there, mainly HP though, but this Ricoh is still the old Queen.

What I did notice is that the inside of the printer is far from clean (patches of toner pretty much everywhere), I bought some magnetic toner wipes from Amazon because I really don't know how to access all the areas and corners.

**mga** · 01-10-2020

You can always get pcu rebuild kit and get a trained engineer to fit cost is a lot cheaper

**copier tech** · 01-10-2020

Originally Posted by itassist

Hi all, I'm not a Ricoh technician but I have worked on this machine every now and again.

The machine has started to show some issues with the Cyan (see pattern attached), is it just a matter of replacing the PCDU or could it something else? Having just printed the PM parts list, I can see that both the developer and PCU have reached 310,000 copies (target 270,000).

Thanks all

I trust you cleaned the laser with the tool (inside the from door)

White lines are usually caused by the dev unit, you get lines or background when the PCU fails.

I'd start by removing the transfer unit & all PCDUs clean inside the machine, split each PCDU & vac up any loose toner.

While you have the cyan unit split have a look at the dev coating can you see a slight deletion?

However if your PCDU has done 310k it has done well & will need replacing soon if now now.

**fshead** · 01-12-2020

Originally Posted by itassist

I didn't question the labour costs (I work in IT so I know that often you can't objectively put a price on experience and good service), but the last quote I had from them for the 3 PCDU (no black) and cleaning unit was £3,500 plus VAT plus labour. I can buy the same parts from my toner supplier for half the cost.

how much is the VAT?
I though you guys were out of the EU?