FMAudit not reading supply data on Ricoh MP 4055

[Oze]

We've had odd things happen with FMA...like Kyocera machines reporting black only...no colour.
Make sure you're running the latest version.
We figured out that the installer we were using was forcing an older version and the update feature was broken.
We had to go to FMA themselves to get a newer version of the installer...that fixed it.
@Remote should work fine though.

[paulg]

The problem is that many Ricoh B/W devices cannot measure the toner level exactly. There is only "full", "almost empty" and "empty" and no percentage level. There are often only about 100 to 200 pages between "almost empty" and "empty". This is not enough to deliver toner in time. To avoid this problem for Ricoh B / W customers, we set the FMAudit status task for these customers to 10 minutes and give them a replacement toner cartridge.
On all Ricoh color devices and many B/W printers (e.g. SP 4510, 4520, 5210 etc.) FMAudit works without any problems.

Since the MP 4055 Corona C1.5 range you can use SP 3-903-005 to use either 3 step or 11 step toner reporting. Which is why Drichards post was relevant possibly.

[diedux]

In many cases, it has nothing to do with FM Audit but the machine itself and how specific brand and model reports toner level through SNMP. In many cases, these are older machines that cause problems.
Example Kyocera FS-3820n, FS-3900DN has 8 steps (one step is 12,5%) to report toner. Older Bizhubs like 600 or C450 has toner status OK and 0%.


So the title should be more like: Ricoh MP 4055 is not giving supply data for FMAudit to read.

[tonerhead]

Here is the answer, pure and sweet. We generally do not have much issue with Ricoh color machines being the cartridges are chipped. HOWEVER mother RICOH hasn't learned to chip the cartridges on B/W machines. Idiots!! We generally have better luck using @remote for toner reporting on Ricoh. Even that is not perfect. The issues come up like this. Toner is caked in tube, machine says out of toner, customer removes tube, notices there is still plenty of toner in tube, shakes tube and reinserts back into machine. The machine recognizes the partial tube as now a full tube. FMA sends out a new tube to customer. Eventually customer ends up with a closet full of toner if this is a common occurrance.

With @remote, you set the copier to request replacement at threshold, and we set the threshold to 50% on the b/w machines. Our supplies order person has gotten pretty good at determining if the customer shook/reinserted the original toner tube. It's a flaw in RICOH.

[diedux]

Here is the answer, pure and sweet. We generally do not have much issue with Ricoh color machines being the cartridges are chipped. HOWEVER mother RICOH hasn't learned to chip the cartridges on B/W machines. Idiots!! We generally have better luck using @remote for toner reporting on Ricoh. Even that is not perfect. The issues come up like this. Toner is caked in tube, machine says out of toner, customer removes tube, notices there is still plenty of toner in tube, shakes tube and reinserts back into machine. The machine recognizes the partial tube as now a full tube. FMA sends out a new tube to customer. Eventually customer ends up with a closet full of toner if this is a common occurrance.

With @remote, you set the copier to request replacement at threshold, and we set the threshold to 50% on the b/w machines. Our supplies order person has gotten pretty good at determining if the customer shook/reinserted the original toner tube. It's a flaw in RICOH.

I call it "toner shake syndrome". But setting clever conditions, triggers, etc in FM audit can handle that. Its is very common on A3 konica's.

[slimslob]

The issues come up like this. Toner is caked in tube, machine says out of toner, customer removes tube, notices there is still plenty of toner in tube, shakes tube and reinserts back into machine.

Excessive clumping is often the result of improper storage. The design of most Ricoh B/W toner bottles is a long slender tube with a flat bottom that lends itself to being easier to store setting on that flat bottom. This causes the toner to settle and compact at the bottom (back end) of the bottle. The longer it sets, the more compacted/clumped it becomes. Ricoh recommends that toner be stored laying flat in order to reduce clumping.

[tonerhead]

Excessive clumping is often the result of improper storage. The design of most Ricoh B/W toner bottles is a long slender tube with a flat bottom that lends itself to being easier to store setting on that flat bottom. This causes the toner to settle and compact at the bottom (back end) of the bottle. The longer it sets, the more compacted/clumped it becomes. Ricoh recommends that toner be stored laying flat in order to reduce clumping.

That's right, now train the customers who can't read the labels saying so on the boxes. Just about all of the customers stack them the wrong way. You just can't fix stupid.

[copyman]

Sorry for being off topic but had a funny story about FM audit. Probably around 10-15 yrs ago my friend who is serv mgr for a big Kon/Min dealer was in a meeting with owner & think it was FM audit. FM was there trying to sell them their program, at the time it cost like $5k or something crazy like that. My friend asks FM if they buy the program which was basically a USB drive could it be copied, they said no way it is protected and couldn't be copied. After sitting for another 10 mins asks if he could go try it, they handed him the thumb drive and he went directly to his office instead of trying it and copied the files! It worked perfectly. He even gave me a copy but I never had any use for it. I think there is a software that goes along with it and didn't have that but when you inserted the USB drive it would read all the equipment on the network with toner levels, out of paper, error codes etc. Needless to say his company never bought the program. True story. I still have the thumb drive in toolbag after all these years.

This same friend has given me copies of Adobe prof, illustrater, etc. He has a knack for cracking license codes, etc. Only thing he wasn't able to crack is the Kip key codes for the options. Hasn't done it in years, said he didn't want to spend his retirement in jail. LOL