ricoh 2220 intermittantly says to install toner

[tmw]

Hi, I hope a ricoh expert can illuminate this for me. I work on these occasionally, but not enough to know the finer points. Basically it has told the customer to change the toner when it was still full, and then it didn't recognize when it was in there. At first I thought it was operator error. A cap wasn't removed the first time, and it looked like the hopper wasn't clicked in all the way.
I had had to pull out & push it in a few times, then it started filling,it came to ready,and could print. When I took the i.u. out, a bunch of loose toner came out with it. Got it vacuumed & checked the unit. Everything looks like it's turning. Put it back together, printed more, then it called to change toner again. Played with the hopper a few times, got it running and printing before I left, and not sure if it will come back again. It seemed like the toner ports were lined up, but it's limited how much I can see.
So I can't tell what I'm missing so far. Thank you for your insight.

[illude2]

Unfamiliar with that model but on black and white machines they can have an issue with the developer drive gears stripping out causing no new toner from mixing into the developer.

[COPIERMAN]

in toner hopper are tabs that can come unglued also you have to know how many copies on devlp unit might need to be replace developer powder. The person mention before me that gears in devlp unit will go bad most of the time that is problem. you would need to rebuild dev unit and new developer powder.

[sandmanmac]

Unfamiliar with that model but on black and white machines they can have an issue with the developer drive gears stripping out causing no new toner from mixing into the developer.

I'm guessing that it's actually an AFICIO 2022 , because as far as I can tell, the poster's model doesn't exist, and he/she hasn't even bothered to come back and correct it.
Why should we be expected to be psychics?
If a person that asks for help can't even be bothered to return and clarify the proper model, then why the hell should we care?

[dalewb74]

something i ran into on a ricoh once was even though the ricoh box said it was the correct toner it wasn't. open the door where you insert the toner, it had a different part number for the toner. ordered that one and it worked fine. the one that didn't work fit just fine into the slot for it. the other 3 colors were correct. just the black wasn't. just a suggestion to look at.

[FrohnB]

If is indeed the Aficio 2022, then you could have a packed up toner hopper (completely disassemble hopper and clean/vacuum out and check the 4 mylars that sweep the toner on the toner ring, if they are slightly bent or missing replace that toner ring). Almost guarantee this is the issue.

It could also be a backed up PCDU, as mentioned by someone else, the developer unit gears can get stripped and not circulate the toner/developer mix.