Toners suddenly running out with no warning on 305/306/307/imc 300

[Gift]

Yes I remember the troubles of the MPC 305 toner problems. We used to find the id board at the back could sometimes go faulty, the hoppers had problems and even the little locking mechanisms could cause problems if someones rammed the toner in like there was no tomorrow.
We try to give a lot of customers a spare set now once they have had the 40-0% thing happen but still I'd love to find the exact cause of it one day because nearly every problem has some kind of fix to it.

Since ricoh never put out a stement I think there's only guesswork. Like I said I have the impression that this problem reduced itself over time - we didn't do anything besides updating firmware. A possible fix is that ricoh did improve the algorythm or a possible cause might be that we bought toner from a differnet market region with less toner/grams. Back then I started documenting things like the netto weight of the toners - unfortunetely I can't find that stuff anymore.

If that's still a big issue on your end despite having the units running with mostly up to date FW I'd buy a set of toner from ricoh and compare the noter netto weight with the toner in your stock.

[slimslob]

Yes I remember the troubles of the MPC 305 toner problems. We used to find the id board at the back could sometimes go faulty, the hoppers had problems and even the little locking mechanisms could cause problems if someones rammed the toner in like there was no tomorrow.
We try to give a lot of customers a spare set now once they have had the 40-0% thing happen but still I'd love to find the exact cause of it one day because nearly every problem has some kind of fix to it.

And usually changing SP 3101-001 to 1 allowed the machine to be usable while you waited for parts.It then relied on the toner sensor to determine when the cartridge went empty, no low toner warning.

[JayPaul]

3101-001 Is that the one where the toner indicators all go to full straight away as if they are all new toners? If so I have used that years ago on old MPC2500 type machines to get out of problems. More recently on models such as the 307 I have used it on call outs where toner runs out but it is still 'half full' so turn that SP on, all toners show as 100% restart machine let print jobs come out, turn SP mode back off and turn off and on again, suddenly toner level goes back to its original state of 40% as if the problem never happened. It is handy having that option from time to time if there is still toner in the bottles

[Batman1976]

Hi Chaps,

I also experience the same issue on our fleet of MPC307/407/IM300/400 devices. You can try adjusting the toner near end threshold via SP mode this will give you a bit more notice at toner near end before the cartridge runs out. Keep firmware levels up to date.

The only information I got out of the Ricoh around this issue is as follows:

The MPC306/307/407/IMC300/400 use one motor to drive all toner cartridges. So if a user sends a black & white print job to the machine it will turn all toner bottles regardless if C,M,Y is not being laid down on the image surface. This then gives a false reading onto the chip that the toner has been used. Still doesn't explain the drop from 30/40% to 0% though. But does make sense that incorrect toners levels are being reported on any remote reporting software.

Cheers
Batman1976

[JayPaul]

It has been years having this problem, so frustrating when it started happening on IMC 300/400 as well, which means the problem will continue for many more years.
I never get answers to anything though, why do some like my office get this problem a lot, but other dealerships and Ricoh apparently never have it happen to them?
I have tried so many things over the years. Someone told me it has to be on the latest firmware version, so I went to a customer who has MPC 307 and only does about 1,000 pages a month. They had never had a problem, but I went there and updated firmware any way to prevent it from happening, literally 10 days later the magenta went from 40% to empty. For me that basically ruled out updating firmware for this specific problem.
Adjusting SP modes for toner levels never achieves anything, making double sure toners are OEM never achieves anything, different firmware levels never achieves anything.
We have someone that works here who is essentially just here to cut down spending on anything and everything, yet even they had to agree we have to send spare sets of toners out for these models. Got so tired of having to drop my work load, just to deliver a toner to a customer 40 mins away because it goes from 40% to 0 in the blink of an eye (we send toners out when they hit 20%)
...and if you think oh why don't you just up the 20% threshold to 40%... we have had them drop from as high as 70% to 0 in some cases.
The toners turning during mono prints and yet still counting them sounds like the biggest design flaw in all of Ricohs history. There must be more to it than that, what is a customer had MPC 307 and printed 100 colour pages for every 8000 mono pages, wouldn't the machine keep asking for colour toners even though they were still 90% full?!
If anyone actually has a real cure for this I'll sing your praises til the end of my career here.

[Gift]

We had this issue a lot but it kind of vanished over the last years. AFAIK it didn't happened witht he IMC300 to us...yet^^

Did you have a chance to inspect the toner bottle if it was really empty? Issues with the toner supply mechanism (like a faulty auger) can also lead to sudden toner-end conditions.

[RicohBoomer]

This series is a real nightmare to be frank. While the machine itself works well when it actually works it has so many unique issues to it that I feel like I've gotten grey hairs from servicing them.
Doesn't help that they aren't very fun to pick apart either.
So far the IM C300 hasn't given us any headaches, so fingers crossed.

As for the topic at hand we've had sudden toner ends from the toner hopper breaking. Removing the hopper reveals that the rubber spiral that is supposed to feed toner into the devbox is either loose or damaged beyond repair.
Why this happens is probably because of the hopper getting overfilled because of the devbox not accepting new toner, causing pressure build up until that rubber spiral snaps.
But it probably isn't relevant to your case as it seems to be much more widespread and if the hopper was broken it wouldn't help to switch toner.

Another issue with toners on this machine is toner buildup inside where it locks in place, causing it to no longer seal the toner as the customer pulls it out. Which turns into a nasty story and a lot of cleaning. This can also mean the copper strands inside the machine to get so dirty it stops detecting the toner. But in that case you should get; "Toner not set correctly" rather than toner end.

I personally haven't had as many issues with sudden toner end in my region. Instead we get SC672 as if it were paper jams.

[GIUBOSS]

Hi Chaps,

I also experience the same issue on our fleet of MPC307/407/IM300/400 devices. You can try adjusting the toner near end threshold via SP mode this will give you a bit more notice at toner near end before the cartridge runs out. Keep firmware levels up to date.

The only information I got out of the Ricoh around this issue is as follows:

The MPC306/307/407/IMC300/400 use one motor to drive all toner cartridges. So if a user sends a black & white print job to the machine it will turn all toner bottles regardless if C,M,Y is not being laid down on the image surface. This then gives a false reading onto the chip that the toner has been used. Still doesn't explain the drop from 30/40% to 0% though. But does make sense that incorrect toners levels are being reported on any remote reporting software.

Cheers
Batman1976

Each toner has its own individual
DRIVE UNIT: TONER SUPPLY
:ASS'Y which rotates independently

[Batman1976]

Each toner has its own individual
DRIVE UNIT: TONER SUPPLY
:ASS'Y which rotates independently

The toner amount remaining/shown in the display is calculated through the pixel data and the number of the toner bottle rotations..
And, 20% and End are judged by the sensor.


The phenomenon occurs when printing many B / W documents in Full Color setting mode.
In the above operation, only B/W is used when all toner is supplied, so toner refresh in the PCDU is performed, and toner is removed from the PCDU.
As a result, the pixel data count does not increase, but only the toner bottle rotational speed will be counted.
Therefore, there is a difference between the toner amount in the display and the actual toner remaining in the bottle. and something like this occurs.

According to the designers this is a specification.

If the machine is set to full color black .....switch it off. Make sure the firmware is at the latest level.