I have a pretty new T/A 250ci I visited today for some unremarkable complaints about the default settings. Under 4K total prints, about half color and half B/W.

During the course of servicing I installed the tech bulletin 5 seals, and updated the firmware (it was installed with the ver 6 firmware). As I finished and began the color registration, the copier asked for black toner. Way too soon I for any toner change I noted, but I went for the spare black, and there was an empty cartridge in the box. Unknown to the key operator, the original black toner ran out and somebody replaced. Yes the 2nd black toner was empty, and there were 5 full waste tanks by the machine all full with black. The customer had no idea they had any deep problem like this going on.

If I open the side cover when the copier is cycling, I can see that the primary transfer belt is covered in black, but not uniformly. It's in a sort of "digital" pattern, but not regular. The hotline was closed today, so I just brought the black drum, developer, and primary transfer back to the shop to test in our machine. None of those 3 units would cause the same behavior in our machine.

Anybody else see this yet? I'm thinking I've lost bias somewhere, or else there is some line noise effecting the bias. It's on one of the Kyocera national account ESP surge protectors.

to me it sounds like a main charge, drum ground
issues- is their any leaf spring contact tabs
not making good contact. If you let the machine cycle to ready is the drum and transfer belt clean

we had a bad hvu unit pcb go bad, but that was giving us a c-code. It is really bare to get at
but once i got going it was not to bad , as the machine was in our shop, but it does take some time

quote:

Originally posted by Chris L:
I have a pretty new T/A 250ci I visited today for some unremarkable complaints about the default settings. Under 4K total prints, about half color and half B/W.

During the course of servicing I installed the tech bulletin 5 seals, and updated the firmware (it was installed with the ver 6 firmware). As I finished and began the color registration, the copier asked for black toner. Way too soon I for any toner change I noted, but I went for the spare black, and there was an empty cartridge in the box. Unknown to the key operator, the original black toner ran out and somebody replaced. Yes the 2nd black toner was empty, and there were 5 full waste tanks by the machine all full with black. The customer had no idea they had any deep problem like this going on.

If I open the side cover when the copier is cycling, I can see that the primary transfer belt is covered in black, but not uniformly. It's in a sort of "digital" pattern, but not regular. The hotline was closed today, so I just brought the black drum, developer, and primary transfer back to the shop to test in our machine. None of those 3 units would cause the same behavior in our machine.

Anybody else see this yet? I'm thinking I've lost bias somewhere, or else there is some line noise effecting the bias. It's on one of the Kyocera national account ESP surge protectors.

On the voyagers their is a drum ground tab
on the inside of the front cover, the cover that you remove to get the drums and dv out.

Anyways it is a spring tab that touches the drum shaft and has black grease on it.
I have had issues with that, maybe the 250ci
is the same or similar.

anyways I would check the drum ground

Cycling to ready is a problem since it will just start adding toner and won't let you do much else. When I open the left cover in mid-cycle, the primary transfer belt is coated in toner. It gets cleaned and deposited in the waste tank. It's pulling an entire black toner cartridge dry in under 2K copies.

The drum, developer, and primary transfer were tested in another 250ci at the shop and no problem. The copier is now back at our shop, and another tech has taken out all the guts right now, but I instructed him to try bending the black drum ground tab inward some more and recoat with fresh conductive grease. It does not look any different than the other 3 ground tabs for the other colors though.

Also tried was the high voltage control PWB (it's a small board behind the power source), as that controls the switching of the developer bias voltages. I made an attempt at the main high-voltage PWB, but just hit a brick wall about 3/4 of the way in to remove it. Looks like the ENTIRE back of the copier must be removed to get to it.

The interesting part of this is the coating of toner on the primary transfer. It is not uniform. It has a digitized pattern to it, but not a regular, repeating pattern. Kind of random. Just a tightly-bunched sequence of horizontal lines of varying length. The center is almost fully filled in by the pattern, the edges have varying amounts of fill in the patterns.

Well the toner is put onto the drum first, than it gets to the transfer belt, So I would think the drum is holding a charge or not being discharged

2nd
maybe the transfer belt is holding a charge, and
keeping the drum charged up or something,
can you unplug the black transfer belt bias roller

Both of those items were tested individually in another copier.

I did not mean the units, but the control of them or connects, what ever. If you unplug the transfer belt bias it may give you a different view or
some way to stop the transfer belt from lifting
as I think the black unit and transfer belt touch all the time. just trying things of a way to cut the issue in 1/2 like either a
thansfer belt related or drum related

it could relate to the transferbelt hv or
the main charge hv unit

quote:

Originally posted by Chris L:
Both of those items were tested individually in another copier.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ToddNew,

I would go with what todd is saying
we have had both hvu bad on different machines
the transfer and the main hvu. That main hvu
takes some time to replace, we brought ours into our shop just to much to take a part in the field. it was actually nice to be in the shop for a day, it was a good break from day to day calls

quote:

Originally posted by ToddNew:
I did not mean the units, but the control of them or connects, what ever. If you unplug the transfer belt bias it may give you a different view or
some way to stop the transfer belt from lifting
as I think the black unit and transfer belt touch all the time. just trying things of a way to cut the issue in 1/2 like either a
thansfer belt related or drum related

it could relate to the transferbelt hv or
the main charge hv unit

quote:

Originally posted by Chris L:
Both of those items were tested individually in another copier.

Since I last posted, the following were swapped out and tested:

• front cover for the image formation
  
• the boards that the drum/developer units plug into
  
• engine pcb
  
• primary transfer HVU
  

About when I was assembling with the test HVU, I got word to stop working on it and this was going to be exchanged by Major Account sales. The serial number is less than 20 on this box, so it likely was a factory flawed unit.

Thats to bad you did not get a chance to find the answer. My guess it was the main hv pcb
You were holding that for last I bet as it is the most time consuming. I have replace two of them, the second one went much faster

quote:

Originally posted by Chris L:
Since I last posted, the following were swapped out and tested:

• front cover for the image formation
  
• the boards that the drum/developer units plug into
  
• engine pcb
  
• primary transfer HVU
  

About when I was assembling with the test HVU, I got word to stop working on it and this was going to be exchanged by Major Account sales. The serial number is less than 20 on this box, so it likely was a factory flawed unit.