Hi there, ive been working on Igens for 4 months now and oh hat a fun 4 months, good days and a all lot of bad weeks. We are having major issues with our fuser rollers, in the last 2 weeks weve replaced 3. two which have shredded inside the machine and one which the top coat has started peeling off. weve asked xerox if anyone else is experiencing these problems but you dont get much feedback. is anyone outthere who has had this happen. also were having problems with colour varience inboard to outboard but we cant tell if inboard has more cyan or outboard has more magenta.

We've had the fuser rolls peel off too. I don't remember what exactly was the problem but I think some gears were worn down or something.

Inboard to outboard color variance is a very common iGen3 issue. A couple of things can fix them, new donor rolls in each developer housing can help. There is also a very time consuming proceedure service can do, called a 614 that calibrates the LED's which compensate for color variances inboard to outboard.

Good luck with those, you are not alone...

The 614 really helped us.. The techs seem to not like to do it because it takes so long... Haven't have color issues in months.. No Fuser problem here...

Dale

I have heard of the fuser roller breaking up in the machine here in our area at a another account last fall. I actually got to see what was left of the roll on a visit to that site, it just came apart like tearing a paper towel insert tube on the seams. We have experienced the peel off breakdowns on several occassions. We generally average about 120,000 impressions per roll normally, but have had it occur with as little as 30,000 impressions when running heavy solid coverage.

You're not leaving the machine in diagnostics, are you?

An issue we had in the first few weeks after our machine was installed that was causing premature Heat roll break down was caused by poor fuser fluid distribution. We ended up having a kink in the fluid feed hoses, you might also have your service techs for check that, as it will cause major peel offs. We had a new issue yesterday, after fuser maintenance was performed, that was the result of a nick in the Ram Blade that was causing poor fuser fluid distribution in one spot, causing the early stages of peel off, it also caused poor fusing in that area of the sheet. If the RDS motor that moves the fuser in and out during a print run is not working properly, you can also have a breakdown of your heat roll causing a heavy paper groove to appear in the roll prematurely. Usually you may see several RDS related faults, but not always if this is occuring.

Unless your service tech left your machine in service mode, you cannot run the press while in Diagnostic Mode. Just make sure you log out of Diagnostics after you finish your maintenance tasks, because the fuser stays active the entire time you are in Diagnostic Mode, and long term heat exposure can also cause a premature breakdown in the roller.

We have been assured by our CTS and CSA that our average Impression rate on our heat rolls is within the national average with the types of jobs we print. Every now and then we do get a premature breakdown of a roller 80,000 or less impressions, but we can usually expect on average to change our roller in and around 120,000 impressions depending on the types of jobs we have been running at the time. Last winter during a long press run, we went through 3 heat rollers in one weekend and we sent our CSE out to borrow rolls from other accounts locally and processed an EO order for one to be shipped in to us overnight to get our job out.

we are lucky if we get 80,000 impressions per roll. our coverage varies we can go from solid blue and black to a tint which is approx 10%

Lately we've been having a lot of issues with the fuser rollers and our new iGen (installed at the beginning of July). We've been getting no more than 50,000 impressions before dull marks start appearing across our copy, generally starting at the inboard edge and running outboard, becoming more solid and thicker for the longer we run. This generally happens when runnning 14x20 or 14.33x20.5 stock. Xerox is currently testing a theory that the roller is becoming too hot and has turned the heat down to see if it helps the problem. We've had several of the new style rollers (we go through so many that one of our technicians volunteered us to test the new style) that maxed at 5,000-15,000 impressions, needless to say I doubt the new style rollers will be available any time soon.

We've been wondering if anyone else sees this problem on their iGen or if we're alone. We've had the problem on our old iGen for a while, but it's never been as bad as it is on the new one, and I'm getting frustrated. Changing the fuser roller every morning isn't something I care to do.

What type of coverage are you printing? If you are running full solid coverage, 50 to 80K is a good average - we print a mixture of sizes and coverage and generally average 80 to 120K before the dull marks become an issue on our prints- however when running a long run with full heavy solid coverage, we average about 50K to 80K. I have been told by Xerox Reps that this is within the national average for the type of printing we do.

Questions regarding your issue:
Do the dull marks travel Lead edge Trail edge across the sheet worse on Inboard Edge working out board or is it actually traveling Inboard/Outboard on the sheet? - does it seem to line up with any thing in the fuser, such as the fuser stripper fingers? When was the pressure roll changed last, as wear marks on the pressure roll can also cause marks on your printed piece. Do you change paper sizes alot as this can account for some marks to become prevailent on the larger sizes usually begining 1" in from the inboard edge of the last paper size ran (ie: 10" on 11" stock). Has your CSE tested the RDS motor to see that it is moving back and forth correctly? (this takes 30 minutes for it to move the entire distance inboard to outboard) Our RDS motor began gumming up and that caused us to have premature roller breakdowns. If you are not changing paper sizes regularly, you might want to have your CSE disable to RDS and see if you get longer runs out of your roller, then keep a spare made up for odd sizes and swap out when necessary for changing paper sizes.

Tracey

I think this is a problem for everyone. We work around this by having 3 rollers set up all the time. One for Uncoated stocks where it wouldn't show anyway, one for small stocks and one for 14x20 and up... If you change the Rolls back and forth you will find the life being a lot longer..


Dale