Canon iRC3200 - Streak of poor quality print

[majorshiv]

I am new to printing and new to this forum, please ignore lack of knowledge.
I am printing double sided legal page. The content is image of text pages. One sides prints well. The other side has a streak [about .5 cm] along the long edge [about 2-3 inches from the top] of poor quality print that is difficult to read. I did try copy to a page from a book and it seems to print OK.

I manually cleaned all the drums and quality did improve a bit but not much.

What should I be doing next. Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[tmbusby]

Check the Fuser

Is the spot always the same?Does auto gradation fix the problem for just a couple of sheets? has the machine had heavy use. This is very important here the next thing I am going to mention _ Have you had any paper jams that have jammed in the fuser ( that is at the front of the machine where you pull out the tray to remove any paper ) We have went through fusers like crazy on ours. I have not been happy with how hot the fuser runs on these 3220 or 3200 If they jam and if it is a glossy stock a label stock or sometimes even regular 60 lb . It will melt to the fuser & when it is pulled out it will take specs of fuser with it. The specs will look the color of a pencil eraser in color. If marks get on the fuser, or if pieces start coming off, there is no fixing only replacing. If you already changed drums & toner, The fuser might be the problem "Do you have a service contract" If you dont, I can tell you how to pull out the fuser to look without touching anything in more detail.

For those who also might need to know. If you start getting spots of toner dropping in different spots & cleaning doesn t seem to help. The problem lies with the transfer belt & the back side of the waste toner. It eventually builds up and the belt has to be scraped cleaned, eventually they will also have to be replaced. We run full 12 x 18 color full coverage on matt stock. We have ran 2 football programs with 100 lb cover full cover & black and white 60 lb txt for 3 years now. We run 100 lb & 90 lb business cards.

Only thing we cannot run is high gloss unless specified for can copiers. We run circle label sheets that are on Tshirt transparency material, Tshirt transparencies, Smart Plates for AB dick offset presses.

**** I dont say this to brag by no means , I have just heard even from canon reps the things these machines dont run. Granted I long for the day for a better machine but If you have one, you can run many things , dont let them talk you out of it. There are some settings you need to change Like for labels, DO not run on heavy, if it goes to slow it will eat the fuser up as I have mentioned above thus is what happened to 1 of our fusers.

Looking for a good priced Xante Illumina

Michael Busby

 

[majorshiv]

Mike, firstly thanks a lot for taking time to solve my problem. I appreciate it.
(a) Is the spot always the same? --- Yes, it always the same place. And as suggested, I pulled out all the toners to check. I found that the "shinning rod" [of the black toner] has one spot about 1 inch wide that has lost the "shine". All other rod [Yellow, Cyan and Magenta toners] have shine all through. Hence I feel I need to replace the BLACK toner. Please advise.

(b) Did I have a jam -- with glossy paper? Yes. Did I have to take it out from front? I don't think so. I did take out the "finisher" and opened the door to pull out the jammed paper. It was real mess for sure.

(c) All other terms that you are using are foreign to me like fuser, belt, auto-gradation etc. This would show to you, my expertise with the printer. I am a novice. I bought this printer when it had about 52K pages and now it has about 68K pages. It has been with me for more than a year now. So I am NOT a heavy user of it. Your mail and other threads in this forum does re-assure me that if I take care of it, the printer has long life left with me.

Once again, thanks a lot for your answer.

majorshiv

 

[majorshiv]

I mean the rod in the drum and not the toner. ---
majorshiv

 

[majorshiv]

One question, should I change the rod only or the whole drum? Yes, is there a recommended site/ shop to but the rod from and how easy/ difficult would it be to change the rod?

majorshiv

 

[majorshiv]

Hi Mike,
I don't have any service contract and would like to know "how to pull out the fuser" to inspect.
Thanks
majorshiv

 

[Jeff]

how to pull out the fuser

Slide out the fixing assembly (handle on the lower left side of the machine - pull and it slides.) If you have a finisher you have to move that away from the machine to give the fixing assembly tray room to slide. Now you will be looking down at the fuser/fixing assembly where you'll see two screws that hold it into the machine. (note make sure you remove the two screws that hold it into the machine, not the other two screws which adjust the nip (fine tune screws for adjusting distance between rollers)

 

[majorshiv]

Mike, Thanks a lot. I shall try this in the evening.
majorshiv

 

[majorshiv]

Hi Mike,
I did open the fuser [thanks for guidance] and did not find any scratched portion. The rods looked perfectly shiny and smooth all over. I rotated them and still found them to be smooth and shiny.
However the cover had lot of "burnt glossy paper remains". I tried to remove these but could not since it was fused on to the plastic. Utlimately I gave up.
How can I remove the old burnt glossy paper from the plastic part that covers the rods?

Cleaned the rods and put the assembly back. And printed one test page. It is double sided legal size. Got the same result i.e. streaks of bad print along the long edge.

I am attaching a word doc with the scanned images of both sides. One side prints OK, the other side has the problem. I have put a red rectangle on it. It is on page 2.

What are my options now. I have very limited business and no service contract.

Thanks
majorshiv

 

[tmbusby]

Did the problem only start after you had the jam with the build up? I want to be careful before I advise you to clean anything as , I can do things without fear of needing to buy a part So I don't want to make your problem worse. The duplexer is at the very front of that tray you pulled out for the fuser. Anyone have any cleaning suggestions. THERE are some small sensors that tell the machine when paper enters & exit the fuser That is fairly fragile you will like to avoid. I will have to get my digital camera & take some pictures of my machine. I can see that sticky black stuff on your machine as clear as day in my head from past experiences . I have used an alcohol stick on plastic surfaces. If you can use the machine to print 1 sided, I would try that for a little while. sometimes running blank sheets will clean it off. While you are running 1 side at a time, the fuser area will get hot, Pretty much everything at the front tray that we pulled out in that area, As soon as you are finished up printing, you can try to wipe the plastic parts. I will get back after I get some pictures of my machine

 

[majorshiv]

Hi Mike,
Some problem did start after the jam like some small yellow lines appearing occasionally. But I noticed this problem after some interval of the jam.
I shall try to clean the plastic part after printing a few 1 sided letter size pages as you explained. I shall try to get some digital photos and send tomorrow.

Thanks for your help.
majorshiv

 

[majorshiv]

I did print 1 sided pages and the fuser became very hot. I took it out and tried to wipe the burn glossy paper for the plastic part of the fuser assembly [covering the roller] but nothing came out. The burned paper remain there. The print had a line [of same thickness as before] faded print.
majorshiv

 

[Jeff]

Get a new fuser -- will be handy to have a spare on hand anyway.

 

[majorshiv]

It seems I do need to get an expert to fix it for me. Can anyone refer a technician in South Brunswick area of NJ?
FYI -- It's a Canon IR C3200 laser printer and printing has become bad -- streak of bad quality print lin

 

[majorshiv]

I changed the black toner and problem went away. Thanks for all the help.

 

[Jeff]

Were you running a "home brew" (refill) toner of some sort?

In a million and a half prints on the 3200 series, I've never had a quality issue in the prints because of the toner or toner cartridge... always that one in a million though I suppose...

 

[majorshiv]

No Jeff,
But not sure either. I had bought this second hand and had never changed it myself. So I guess it was original, at least that's how it looked to me.
The one I replaced with is also claiming to be "genuine original", though I bought it from third party web site.

Thanks for confirming the long life this machine is capable of.
Shiv

 

[Frank 73]

Hi .
I am new to this forum.
I have simular problem with my Canon IR c3200. I install new drums, manual cleaning inside. And I have this problem. See picture.What should I be doing next. Thanks a lot for your help
Any sugestions on this. Please

 

[tmbusby]

poor quality

have you ran about 20 sheets since install to clean?Have you changed fuser also. Does not look like a fuser problem (has the transfer belt ever been changed (how many impressions?) While I am discussing this, our canon is sitting in a corner we have a xerox 7435 & a konica 650 actually an ikon but made by konica now serviced by Ricoh . .

Need a black drum for our 3220 so we can run black for office use.

 

[Frank 73]

I'm not shure about fuser. I pull out last night peace of clear plastic from fuser.. How can I find if is transfer belt bad. When I take out transfer belt from printer after printing is done it is lot of remaining ink on belt. Dont know if that normal or belt is bad..
Thank you for ... Frank