BH-C-360, MAC-OS faulty K empty indication

[Hansoon]

Contract customer called me in panic today that her BH-C-360 suddenly is without K-toner and the machine stopped printing. I told her that the machine way before warns that the toner should be replaced soon. Her answer was no, her MAC's are showing all the time, for ever, in the MAC driver that the toner needs replacement but the machine itself showed a full bar graphic and the machine continued working since month's with this situation.

Question, can it be true that MAC's are having a problem in their driver that the toner and other consumables are not giving proper information? I heard before that MAC's where nagging about TB replacement in the driver but that they would show the need for toner replacement though enough toner present and therefore confusing the operator is new to me.

Hans

[Synthohol]

doesnt the copier have a gas gauge for toner?

[femaster]

Are you sure she isn't mistaking an end of life K drum for empty toner? A Mac driver will forever nag you whenever any of the items reach end of life, even if you have all the long-life settings set not to display and to keep going...

[rrrohan]

you could just disable SNMP with only minor side effects.

or maybe disable the consumables life display with the bit switch (not sure if the C360 had this option though)

[copier tech]

Contract customer called me in panic today that her BH-C-360 suddenly is without K-toner and the machine stopped printing. I told her that the machine way before warns that the toner should be replaced soon. Her answer was no, her MAC's are showing all the time, for ever, in the MAC driver that the toner needs replacement but the machine itself showed a full bar graphic and the machine continued working since month's with this situation.

Question, can it be true that MAC's are having a problem in their driver that the toner and other consumables are not giving proper information? I heard before that MAC's where nagging about TB replacement in the driver but that they would show the need for toner replacement though enough toner present and therefore confusing the operator is new to me.

Hans

These toner bottles do not have a chip, so say the machine runs out of toner a user removes, shakes & refits the bottle back it will show full on the toner gauge display.

When they start to print it will go from full to empty in just a few prints.

This is the most likely scenario in my experience.

[rrrohan]

never understood the shake and refit mentality. how can you be so lazy that youd rather do like 66% of the work instead of 100%. just go get a new toner bottle. its like going to the gas station and pretending to refill the tank

[Hansoon]

doesnt the copier have a gas gauge for toner?

"toner needs replacement but the machine itself showed a full bar graphic" :)

Hans

[kingarthur]

never understood the shake and refit mentality. how can you be so lazy that youd rather do like 66% of the work instead of 100%. just go get a new toner bottle. its like going to the gas station and pretending to refill the tank

I use a similar analogy with customers, if your car is low on petrol, would you shake it side to side to get more petrol out of it......

[copier tech]

never understood the shake and refit mentality. how can you be so lazy that youd rather do like 66% of the work instead of 100%. just go get a new toner bottle. its like going to the gas station and pretending to refill the tank


You know what customers are like they'll do anything to get the last few prints out & go home.

Then book a call the following day for C-2557 error!

[emujo2]

I use a similar analogy with customers, if your car is low on petrol, would you shake it side to side to get more petrol out of it......


This is leftover standard processes from previous decades of copier models..Because removing and shaking bottle would free up small clumps of toner and actually allow you to get those 100 more copies..Today the bottles are designed to prevent these clumps and the bottle even turns backward every so often to assist in the process..Now to save money and to prevent customers from replacing bottles that have not emptied we turn off low toner and replace toner. Now customers run out and never know they should have ordered..E

[progoffice]

Although it has its quirks, I like Kyocera's approach to this. When configured correctly on their A3 machines, the customer can't replace the toner until it runs out. The downside is that customers think the toner goes where the waste toner bottle resides. When they do this, it flips a switch on the bottle so that it can't be used as a new toner when the machine actually runs out. This switch can be flipped back and installed as a new bottle, however. The other benefit is the empty black toner can be used as a new waste bottle. It's a pretty cool idea and works well if you properly train the end users. I always confirm with the customer that the bottle is 100% new before telling them how to reset the switch - don't want to contaminate the machine with waste toner!

[allan]

You can try and disable SNMP on the machine side. Think that is the service that communicates the machine status for MAC as well.
Under network settings you will find the SNMP settings. You can try and use different versions v1 v2...

If there is an option for SNMP under the printer port configuration disable that too.

Or find firmware that fixed this if any...

[allan]

I use a similar analogy with customers, if your car is low on petrol, would you shake it side to side to get more petrol out of it......



And boy they know it will get the machine to give a couple of more prints.
It does allows some of these machines to run off of the toner in the sub hopper and past that all the way to C2557.