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Lagonda
06-12-2013, 12:30 AM
Ricoh Oz have just released a RTB warning of problems with the AIO toner cartridge for the SP 5200 range. Due to a manufacturing problem the mounting point for a spring that holds the dev unit to the drum snaps off allowing the drum to move away from the mag roller on one side. The visable symptom is only one third of the image is printed with a a wavy blurred line where the image fades out.

Their solution is to pull the side off the cartridge, file a small notch on the remaining stump and refit the spring. ( My solution is to send the lot back as unfit to sell and get a credit but there may not be any good ones to replace them.)

We just went through the 40 cartridges we have in stock and 99% of them were faulty. It appears that the production run from March '13 onwards is the problem and these can be identified by the date on the label, i.e,
Model M851-08 303
The 303 tells you it was manufactured in March '13. We also found ones made in April '13 were also a faulty.

We are still waiting for an official anouncement from Ricoh how they are going to handle the problem i.e. replace the dud ones or finanical compensation for having to modify all these AIO's before they are sent out.

And as if that wasn't bad enough while we were pulling all the cartridges apart to mod them we noticed about 20% of them had marks on the drum caused by the drum cover flap rubbing against the drum. The symptoms are a line of small spots about 3 to 4 mm apart. In most cases the marks could be polished off, but you still shouldn't have to do that on a brand new cartridge. The cause appears to be badly designed packaging that pushes the flap against the drum.

See RTB RM052058 for the full story.

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