3 and 4 series MPC toner add issues

[Polarbear]

Hi all

here in Sunny South Africa, in my service area, we very seldom get anywhere near freezing point temps, and we also had a batch of these break toner coils, especially black ones. Also we randomly had dev units lock up and sound like a chainsaw, so bound up that you could not turn the gears by hand.

The bearing story makes sense, as it seemed to go away the longer the model was in production. One thing is strange though, we would not replace the broken auger, but rather repair it, by inserting a short piece of metal staple between the back of the auger piece and the base (to locate the auger) and then we would supply our standard instant glue called "Q-bond" with some of their own black bonding powder, then re-assemble and test.

To date, not one of the repaired coils have broken again.... makes one wonder....

On another note, we have even had one of the b/w boxes that use the large black toner bottle, break their toner coil in the same way. Repair was not possible as the coil was so contorted that in would bend once inserted in the toner path, once clued back together. So we opted to replace the supply unit.

[Klydon]

Just to update on this one. I basically executed the plan I mentioned above. (New PCDU and hopper for magenta). I took apart the entire toner add system for magenta from the bottle down and cleaned it all out with a vacuum and then went with a new toner cartridge. The hopper I pulled out had a mangled auger in it (this was the replacement I put into the machine). Second time that has happen where I have put in a new hopper only to have the machine wreck it again.

It wound up being an expensive fix. (2 devo units, 2 hoppers, and a PCU).

The good news is the sucker appears to be working so far. Hopefully it stays that way for awhile.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in on this thread and I would like to hear from anyone else that runs across this issue because like I said; this isn't the first time for me and it has happen to some of my team mates and we don't have a handle on what is causing it.

[Oze]

I've had an MPC3504 that I've been struggling with as well.
Grinding supply gears and out of magenta toner.
Went the first time(Account is 2 hours away) and replaced magenta PCDU and a new toner supply unit...turned the dev to make sure that it wasn't seized and it worked fine.....for a day.
Went back the next day with a new magenta dev and a s/h toner supply unit AND updated the firmware.
It's working fine for now....it had NEVER had firmware updated.

[anothertech]

It's working fine for now....it had NEVER had firmware updated.

All too common where I work. Must be too hard for the techs to DO THEIR JOB!

I fully understand if you don't have access to firmware, but if you do, JUST DO IT.

Stepping down off soapbox now.

[Oze]

All too common where I work. Must be too hard for the techs to DO THEIR JOB!

I fully understand if you don't have access to firmware, but if you do, JUST DO IT.

Stepping down off soapbox now.

I hear you....and it's a noisy troublemaker account as well so it's not as though other techs have never been to the machine.

[copier tech]

I've had an MPC3504 that I've been struggling with as well.
Grinding supply gears and out of magenta toner.
Went the first time(Account is 2 hours away) and replaced magenta PCDU and a new toner supply unit...turned the dev to make sure that it wasn't seized and it worked fine.....for a day.
Went back the next day with a new magenta dev and a s/h toner supply unit AND updated the firmware.
It's working fine for now....it had NEVER had firmware updated.

Each time i’ve seen this issue firmware has never been updated when engineers replace the dev & hopper the issue returns.

Fitting another hopper & dev AND updating the firmware issue does not return.

Interesting as there is not mention of this issue in the firmware release notes.

[MrEdge]

Hey Guys
Anyone had this issue when the firmware is already up to date?

[Polarbear]

Hey Guys
Anyone had this issue when the firmware is already up to date?

Which issue?

Binding dev gears or broken toner coil?

[MrEdge]

Which issue?

Binding dev gears or broken toner coil?

Both.

It appears the binding gears in the developer unit and the broken toner hopper coil occur due to toner being continuously being feed into the developer unit, it gets packed to the point where things break.......These 2 issues seem to have the same root cause but show up as these 2 different symptoms or both it you hit the jackpot!!
To me it looks like the TD sensor data (VtRef) is somehow getting corrupted or when the new developer unit is run up the new value of VtRef is not registered as the new set point? It's just odd as we have had a few of these and mostly a new toner hopper and developer unit sorts the issue, on one occasion where we had a recall we reseated every connector on the I/O and BCU boards and that got it sorted, but not this time.
We are vigilant on keeping the firmware up to date on our fleet as this prevents a load of service calls so this machine was running the latest versions when the fault occurred.