Toner going from 40% to Empty instantly

[JayPaul]

Hi all,
This has been a problem for a while in my company now. Many of the MPC 307 machines and some of their close relatives 306/406 etc have toner problems. We don't use @remote anymore we use something called PIPS which other than this toner fault is far more user friendly and reliable than @remote ever was for us. It may be sold under a different name in different places so I will attach a picture to show what this software looks like so people that use it may recognise it.
We have it set so when a toner gets to 20% it emails us and that toner gets sent to that machine, simple enough. Except the 307's in particular just drop from usually 40% sometimes 50/60% to empty, then the custoemr rings and compalins they ran out of toner. I went out to one earlier just to check because I know the 305's used to have a lot of problems with boards that reads the toner chip. I pull out the suspected toner and it is actually completely empty. Nothing left in it at all.
Have any of you had this problem, I'm trying to determine if it is the toner chips, the machine itself or the software that is at fault?
The easy way around it would be to leave spare toners with the machines but there was a big riot about that when we rolled out this software because it was decided from now on we don't leave spares as we had about £15,000 worth of toner just sat at our customers offices which was collected and brought back to be distributed when they were actually needed... so that is basically out of the question.
My hope is that someone uses this software and says yeh we used to have that problem but did so and so to solve it.
Sorry for long postPIPS.jpg << This is the software

[solorajder]

I don't now this softwear but why don't you use a "auto e mail notification" which is integrated in machines. We use it for the same reason and it works fine.

Sent from my G8441 using Tapatalk

[Dan G]

Haven't run into to it but there is a new Publication #99 released where you can change near end toner thresholds
for that model change SP 3110-1-4 as follows - blk= 23 col = 10
Hope this is helpful

[dalewb74]

genuine ricoh toners or?

[JayPaul]

Yes only and always genuine toner from Ricoh.
I think that near end threshold is designed for @remote isn't it? We used to change thresholds for toners when we used it a few years back.
This auto email notification, how does it work? I saw it briefly described once but it didn't show how to set it up or what to do

[slimslob]

Yes only and always genuine toner from Ricoh.
I think that near end threshold is designed for @remote isn't it? We used to change thresholds for toners when we used it a few years back.
This auto email notification, how does it work? I saw it briefly described once but it didn't show how to set it up or what to do

You set it up using WIM.

[JayPaul]

Is there a guide somewhere or bulletin about this? Can't really say i've seen much about it other than the occasional mention in threads on here. Just one of those things i've never needed and never learned about

[keithxxiii]

Fleet management software uses snmp ports to read the details of the management information base of devices. I am using @remote, FMAudit, 3Manager and Device Manager NX in managing this fleet. All of those gives me almost the same outputs because the polling time I have set is at minimum 15 mins up to max 4 hrs. That is enough to send the status of the devices to wherever the reporting server is. Check on your software what is the polling time and upload of reporting to the server.
Most of the mono devices are showing only OK and empty status whereas for color it shows every detail. I believe the software you use also has a proactive readings of how many days left before it runs out depending on the usage. You might want to check the coverage counters of the device that are affected.

[JayPaul]

It runs on a multiple scan system, so for consumables it scans every 60 minutes, it scans once a day at 10am to see if there are any new machines on the network (if you set it to scan a whole ip range that is). Also a status scan every 20 minutes to show most conditions of the machines, is it in error state, meter readings etc
So for colours similar to yours they go from 100% down to 20% which emails us and we send the toner, instead of saying 10% it will say 'near empty' then 'empty' but for mono machines is always just says 'some' then eventually 'toner low'
We don't have any problems with the mono machines really, the 'toner low' is sufficient time to send out a toner.
It does have a prediction based on average coverage of when the toner will run out, sometimes it is accurate to the day other times it is weeks out. So we don't rely on that because they may suddenly do a long accounting run with a blue logo for example and cyan goes empty 15 days before expected empty date.

[zed255]

Ricoh machines have no way of really 'knowing' how much is actually in the cartridge. The chip just tells the machine when a new cartridge is inserted and a pixel count is reset. The unit is programmed with how much toner is supposed to be loaded into a new cartridge (in grams) and just subtracts from that weight based on the number of pixels printed in that given colour. It uses this to estimate the % remaining. A physical sensor tells the machine when toner stops being delivered from the cartridge. So, there are conditions where the machine can 'think' there is more toner in the cartridge than there is and go straight to a toner end.

That said, here's a couple ideas where things can possibly go awry:

1) The density of the image is too high, either via a fault or by deliberate adjustment, resulting in the incorrect (too little) toner being subtracted from the cartridge over time. What you get is the machine telling you you have lots of toner left but hit a toner end condition suddenly.

2) Toner from a questionable source, either not having the correct amount of toner in them, or the quality of the toner is suspect causing process control to jack up toner density.

You should be able to adjust the toner weight in SP mode to compensate, either the new cartridge weight or the amount subtracted per pixel. Lower the starting cartridge weight or increase to amount used per pixel so that the actual end condition occurs when the machine thinks it will, assuming no other faults are present. Either way, the amount of toner it thinks it has is only an estimate based on a calculation and the end condition is physically detected.