enx magazine

As a field service engineer, there is one thing that has truly impressed me about copiers in general and that is the general cleanliness of the machine. This goes for almost any machine site where there is a copier or laser printer installed, and there is no excuse for it when vacuum cleaners are so readily available in the field. More specifically, it’s just the general condition of the interior when the front doors are opened. It never fails to amaze me how dirty they are inside. Maybe I’m just a nitpicker and a neat freak, but I truly believe that a good running machine is a carefully maintained and clean device, both inside and outside as well. I have noticed that with some techs (and customers as well) the interior of the machine cleanliness is not as important as the way it performs and delivers acceptable copies for the shop. Toner in general will coat almost every surface in the machine including the optics as well. And as we are well aware of, toner on any lens surface will decrease the efficiency of the device.

Keep in mind that it makes no difference to me what brand of copier or laser printer we are servicing because the interior dirt level affects all machines and that includes new machines as well. As the fleet of copiers and system printers age, the manufacturer has introduced various retrofits to address the dirt issue as it came up. Photoreceptors for the most part were not lasting as long as they were designed to last and something had to be done.

Most of the machines I have recently serviced were running without the spots blade retrofit. When I inquired where it was, the answer was pretty much the same: they did not think it was needed and it was removed. After carefully explaining to the customer how important the spots blade was, they would often balk at the cost of its installation. The spots blade was developed to remove spots from the photoreceptor belt. Spots are the one major complaint of all the end-users in the print-for-pay industry. The spots blade retrofit is available for the entire 1090 family of copiers and that includes the 4050 and 4090 system printers as well. When the 5090 family was introduced to the field, the retrofit was available for this product as well as the Docutech and 6135 families. Actually, there is a spots blade retrofit for all copiers and system printers that use a plastic photoreceptor belt. It’s interesting to note that there were several end-users that complained that the spots blade actually caused damage to the photoreceptor belt. That may have been true because it probably was not installed or adjusted properly. Before installing a new spots blade, make sure you refer to the adjustment section of the service manual and do the adjustment first. I think the customer will appreciate it when the photoreceptor belt’s life is almost doubled. You can’t argue with actually saving money for a photoreceptor belt by extending its useful life.

On your next scheduled service call where you do a full PM (Preventative Maintenance) on a machine, use your super sucker to thoroughly vacuum the interior as well. Clean all optics in the cavity with a slightly moist soft cotton rag. Keep away from any harsh commercial cleaning chemicals like Windex because they seem to leave a slight haze on first surface mirrors. Water always works best. For cleaning machine surfaces (in general) use a mild spray detergent like 409 or Fantastic. Make sure that all interior panels and access doors are firmly in place and secured. I can’t tell you how many times I found copiers with missing interior panels and it does make a difference in performance. Think about this: if the interior panels were not really necessary why would the manufacturer design the copier with them in the first place? They could save some big bucks by eliminating all these do-dads inside the copier, right? All interior panels and access hatches are there for a reason and when the engineers designed the copier, they were mostly for directing the air flow through the interior of the copier and to displace heat to the outside of the machine. With the panels removed, dirt levels are affected and then there is the heat disposition to consider as

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