Any old old school copier techs here?

[KenB]

Fun times, when you could lift a 250 pound copier off the cement floor with another tech, all day long, no problem.

The Canon PPC-1, plain paper copier, could have been advertised as "THE LA BREA TAR PITS".

Google LA BREA TAR PITS if you don't know what that is.

Wet toner, like kerosene with India ink concentrate, about 3 quarts.

Would usually last about 2 weeks, before turning into mucky tar mess in the "TANK" developer unit.

Oh my God. 1976.


Grey

The PPC-1 was a projection print camera, not an office copier.

The first Canon copier was the NP-L7, introduced in 1972.

It had a “sheet mode” feature, which would make one copy only of originals fed through it. If I remember, you could “dial in” up to 20 copies in book mode; it mechanically ratcheted down until the run was completed.

The NP-70 was the same machine, less sheet mode.

The L7 was blue, and the 70 was red, FWIW.

I worked on both of them (almost no NP70s) until the last of them disappeared around 1985 or 86.

You are absolutely correct about the nastiness of the liquid developer, though. It was also used in the NP-30, 50, 60, and 80.

These were advertised as being “Plain Paper” machines because the paper wasn’t coated, as with an electrostatic copier, and technically that was correct. The issue was that they needed paper with a smooth, hard finish, else the liquid toner would absorb into it, resulting in grey, fuzzy copies, a lot of times with lots of background. The paper dust would contaminate the developer in short order.

Canon sold the correct paper, but so did Hammermill and other paper companies, made to the proper specs.

[gneebore]

By “dial”, were you referring to the dial on the cartridge that progressively turned from green to red? There was an “odometer-like” mechanism that progressed the dial by counting drum revolutions.

The idea was that as it turned red there was less and less toner available, and that the drum, cleaner and developer were wearing, but that was not necessarily true.

Customers would run copies with the cover open (although not as common with a moving copy board), and blank streaks would start occurring even though the indicator was still green.That was always a fun conversation to have. Not.

No There is a dial in a brown square on the left front of the copier. That had I believe preset copy enlargement/reduction ratios. The dial on the cartridge was in a tiny window/port so the operator could see the approximate toner remaining. Oh yeah we had to show customers all the time to take the toner cartridge and gently shake it before putting it in the machine to make sure the toner was evenly distributed in the cartridge. Otherwise they might get blank streaks on one side or the other. Even with fairly new-full cartridges.

[KenB]

No There is a dial in a brown square on the left front of the copier. That had I believe preset copy enlargement/reduction ratios. The dial on the cartridge was in a tiny window/port so the operator could see the approximate toner remaining. Oh yeah we had to show customers all the time to take the toner cartridge and gently shake it before putting it in the machine to make sure the toner was evenly distributed in the cartridge. Otherwise they might get blank streaks on one side or the other. Even with fairly new-full cartridges.

Gotcha...I forgot about the reduction/enlargement dial.

[Debs1964]

Is early 1985 old school enough, I'm sure I must be due time off for good behaviour by now

[kingarthur]

Is early 1985 old school enough, I'm sure I must be due time off for good behaviour by now

you're a youngster compared to me

[kingarthur]

does anyone remember the 3m Scotch copier, with the pink paper.....that's my first "copier"

[rspicer]

I started in the business in 1994, working for a Lanier dealer. There were still a lot of Harris/3M machines out there at the time. A few years later I moved to a Toshiba Dealer, which was great because most of the Lanier engines were Toshiba made. Sometimes I miss the analog days. I had hair before I had to deal with software issues.

[spanky]

does anyone remember the 3m Scotch copier, with the pink paper.....that's my first "copier"

I used one before long before I was a tech.

Never worked on one.

[slimslob]

does anyone remember the 3m Scotch copier, with the pink paper.....that's my first "copier"

You mean the one where it the copy was left too close to a heat source such as sunlight shining through a window or a heater the whole sheet would turn black?

[Debs1964]

you're a youngster compared to me

I knew that anyway ;-)