Magenta LED head appears broken

Soulvisitor

• 1113 Answers
• Posted on Jan 13, 2008

SOURCE: Oki c5100n printing colors offset

posted by Halfwalkeer on Nov 13, 2007 Report abuse

Just replaced the color toner cartridges in the c5100N, two OKI (cyan and yellow) and one non-OKI (magenta). Now it appears that registration is completely off.

When printing an image, there is a band of yellow at the top about 6mm high, and a band of purple (not cyan) at the bottom about 6mm high. It seems that the yellow printing LED array is printing offset. I've verified this with a typical test page that shows yellow blipped up by several mm.

What the hell happened ? How can I fix it ?

Thanks -

Dean.
Comment by Halfwalkeer, posted on Jan 02, 2008 Drums are all at 34%. Please don't tell me that the drums only have a 50% lifetime on them, because that would just suck royally. When you say the problem is most likely drums, in what way ? What could have gone wrong ?

I was able to more or less fix the problem ... It took several iterations of ColorMenu->Adjust Registration followed by Maintenence Menu->Menu Reset, but it was finally able to pull the registration back into line.

I got worried at one point - after it was "fixed" the printer was powered off. Upon powerup again, registration was off by several centimeters ! Another round of the above finally "fixed" it again, but I haven't powered it down again.

It was a cheap printer. Maybe this is why ...
Post Solution Work Queue Have the same problem? X This Problem has been added to the Share Your Expertise Page under "My Work Queue". OK Solution #1 posted on Jan 02, 2008
Soulvisitor
Rank: Guru
Rating: 86%, 674 votes

What is the stats % of drums if low under 50% change them, soon as you add non Gen you throw a spanner in any attempt to fault find, fix is possible toner more than likely drum/drums, do a print of each colour and change drums as indicated by failure in its colour to print, check transport belt is OK and led heads are clean
Comment by Soulvisitor, posted on Jan 02, 2008 I was thinking about the band of yellow being caused by cleaning blade wearing on drum, drums are garenteed by oki if over 50 %, under that one is on their own ie purchase new if having problems with them

If you can fix problem doing colour calibration then faulty drum is not likely the issue.

Cant stress how many problems are caused by non gen consumables in machines, highly dont recommend their use.

SOURCE: Sensor Error

About the croaking noise:
The drum unit, underneat the toner cartridge, at the left side (seeing the machine from the front) has a kind of a pump device, made with an internal small belt (you can't disassembly it), its function is to move the old used toner, that exit the cartridge from the left hole, into the springed plunger, the toner moves into that chamber and is pumped back into the cartridge. In time that chamber receives so much old toner that the small transporter belt inside can't move anymore, it makes a very high load to the pulleys and they jump tooth, so the noise. You may want to disassembly the drum unit, (as reference the yellow p/n is 42126601), and get isolated just that chamber, there is only one small plastic geat that moves the pump inside. The gear must rotate somehow free, if not, try to such old toner using a vacuum cleaner, but you will need to keep rotating the gear by hand to pull out all the bad toner. It may exit from the bottom hole or from the spring loaded plunger on top (when pulling the spring). If you are lucky you may have it working back again, if not, prepare your dollars bills to replace the unit. The croaking you are listening may be cause by this or it may be a wrong drum unit you installed into the machine. Check the gears between the old and new units. Good luck. Wagner.

SOURCE: Keeps asking to replace image drum,

Every laser printer has a disposable drum that needs replaced after so long. Once the drum has reached the end of it's life, the most printers will stop printing until it is replaced.
Search Google for "OKI C5500n drum" and you should find plenty of places to buy a replacement.

SOURCE: OKI Toner

So what can also be at play here is not only the composition of the toner but how the actual toner is made. To make it very simple, most (quality) color toner made today is chemically grown so make it is consistently uniform in shape, color and size. Ideally when this is done the toner is composed of uniform small spheres. If you have been purchasing cheap c-rap internet toner you have likely been purchasing generic toner that has been ground from a block of material. This makes for uneven and gagged particles. The wax is an easy way out for oki, and may be a contributing factor but the former is most likely what you have. As the owner of a Cartridge World, I can tell you that we do not refill or recommend refilling these cartridges for the same reason that you now have these problems, there is not a high quality, reliable replacement toner being manufactured for these cartridges. If you would like to not have these problems then you need to replace all of your drums and toner with Oki OEM. The fact that they are all now contaminated with c-rap toner means the others are on the way to where your cyan and magenta currently are.

SOURCE: I have a Oki C9500 laser, the magenta print is streaky

I have the same problem with my OKI c3100, please help