C7000 shows empty toner with new toner installed

[djscuttle]

Same issue as everyone else here. I figured out how to fix it. Even if your toner is reporting empty and will not work, they can still be salvaged. I thought once the chip reports it as empty there is no hope, but as reported on here, that indication strangely resolves once you unclog the toner path. Make sure you have the latest firmware update just incase that chip reprogram function isn't in earlier versions. In fact some of the updates are designed to improve reliability, so it's generally a good idea to update.  

Regardless here is the process I did for clearing the toner path. I'll explain it in a way that anyone can understand.

- Unplug the printer. Just hitting the power button behind the door probably wont work.
- First remove the affected color
- Remove all drums carefully - You might have to remove a screw, as well as the orange thumb screw for each one. Remember which one goes where. Now open big lower door on the left side. Remove the Fuser, by removing the two orange thumb screws and sliding out.
- Now you can remove the phaser? I think it's called. Inside the front panel again,two large orange thumb screws, and it has a little handle to pull it out and an orange handle on the top to carefully lift it without touching the important looking parts. It looks like a mini treadmill with a glossy black track. be careful with all of these things.
- Now you should be able to see towards the back of the unit, the toner paths that feed into the developers.
- You need to remove the developer for the affected color. There are 4 of these, they slide out under where you took the drum out. There is one screw to remove, and also you need to unplug the wire from the wire harness. To expose the wire harness part where you can unplug, there is a plastic cover. on the top of the cover there are two tabs you can push down then remove the cover. Once you see the wiring harness, carefully disconect the developer. Don't pull it by the wire, they will break. Use a small screwdriver to spread the small connector from the bigger one. 
- Time to pull out the developer. Be careful it will have an opening on the top packed with toner. pay attention to the part inside the machine where this hole on the far end of the developer lines up with. This is the toner path. 
- Slightly vaccuum the toner opening on the developer, and turn it just a few times, and vacumming again. Do not over vaccuum. The concentration of toner material in the developer needs to remain at a certain level or else it will need replacement. Just make sure the turning wheel turns somewhat free. There will still be a bit of tension on it. Oh yeah and it should only go one way. If you turn it the wrong way you will see the flap along the developer cylinder get sucked in. That is the wrong way, turn it the other way.
- Ok so the part inside I mentioned, the toner path where it connects to the developer, is easily accessed from that side door where we took the fuser out. You can put your hand in there, and stick you pinkey finger in the hole. It's closed up. But around that hole there is a white plastic with a spring, and you can rotate this to open the door to the toner path. You can verify you did because now your pinky can go in it. This is what you want to vaccuum out best you can. Stick the vaccuum wand right on this part, maybe even cup your fingers around so it can really suck this part clean.
- Now put it all back together in reverse order of disassembly
- When you fire it back up, put the old toner in if you have it. 
- Once it boots up, it will change the status of the old toner from empty replace, to order toner instead. This is when you want to put your new toner in. Should be almost instant, and show you like 80-100% full. If it tells you to take it out and shake it, you either didn't clear the toner path enough, or the developer has too much friction and you need to clean more toner material out of it. Remember not to clean too much out if you can avoid it. 
- Thats it, hopefully this is helpful to someone

- With the m

[korn]

It's been about 3 years since I posted this....

Weird to see it getting replies now.

For anyone interested the Xerox tech could not fix it so they sent me a whole new printer.

Didnt cost me a penny since it was under a service agreement I just had to swap the behemoth out and repack it for pickup.

Luckily I was able to reuse the nylon banding straps to tie it back down to the skid....

The new printer has been working flawlessly for the last 3 years. I cringe every time I have to change a toner or waste cartridge because I always think it will fail again if I open the front door. 

[emildejulio]

Your right this thing clogs the toner path. It happens all the time. I've gotten quite good at taking the covers off and unclogging the toner path. I've had to replace the developer once when I screwed up.  I now remove the developer and cartridge and vacuum out the toner path down in the machine. The part that turns the cartridge get plugged. It's a bad design. I loose some toner but that can be replaced. I have to do the clean out ever so often. I would imagine if the machine was used daily it wouldn't clog as bad. I use it at home and it's not really made to sit fora few days and not get exercised. 

[RobCT4335-NSP]

This product has clogged toner path issues.
It has to be taken apart by a tech, and cleaned out or replace the toner augers. The developer housings for the affected colors need to be replaced, or just developer material, to get the toner concentration back close to what it should be. Then it may need an nvm 301 reset for iot 1. To get the logic to start over.

[mgoldshteyn]

The best advice if cleaning it yourself doesn't help is to power it off. Let it sit for a day or two, and preferrably on a less humid day, power it back on and pray...pray...pray... it may show that the toner cart is back in action with the expected amount of toner left in it.

[emildejulio]

Did you ever get this thing to work properly?  I bought one a year ago and two days ago and it is now ouit of warranty.  Mine wont print either even with a new cartridge.  I wonder if the is a way to bypass the safetys on the thing.

[emildejulio]

I have the same problem  c7000 unit first showed needing to order cartridge when I only used the yellow cartridge 300ish times the cyan and magenta showed 92 and 97% full.  A day after the cartridge said it was empty and would not operate even though the cartridge still had plenty of toner still remaining.  Service guy was sent out since it was still under warranty and the yellow and developer were replaced.  unit ran about 10 more prints over the course of a couple months then the black cartridge said it needed to be ordered.  the next day with no prints run it said it was empty and I needed a new cartridge.  I called tech support and was told the unit was 2 days out of warranty and would require me to pay for a service call or take it into a place and pay for service.  After some negotiations with several people they agreed to send me out a new cartridge.  I also wanted a new developer as that is what fixed it the first time but to no avail.  The cartridge arrived and was replaced and the unit still says the black cartridge is empty.  Tech support will no longer help.  I would advise to not purchase any units from xerox as they do not stand buy their products any longer.There also needs to be a class action suit filed on this unit as it is opviously a design flaw.

[DOBERMANN]

Thank you for the information. Agree 100% on the humidity issue ... I let my printer sit for almost 6 months as I bought a replacment (HP) and didn't have time to be a printer technician ... I started it just for the heck of it and it worked?!?!?!? ... for about 250 pages, then went back to the same old empty toner drill ... I'll try the "spin wheel" fix ... thanks for sharing! Best regards!!!

[mgoldshteyn]

I wanted to reply to this thread to let you all know that when this problem occurs, the printer does not zero out toner cartridges when it displays the empty warning! I just had it happen again with Magenta, a color my printer seems to really hate! I went through four different carts, one empty, two high capacity full/half-full (respectively), and one standard capacity (full) and it said empty on all of them.

Finally, out of desperation, I pulled out the standard cart that was in the Magenta slot, the last cart I put in. I took one of the full high capacity toners that already showed as empty at least twice if not three times at this point. Powered off the printer using the rear power button. While it was powered off, I spun the little white plastic wheel on the side of the toner in the correct/spinnable direction about three rotations. Shook the toner, put it back in and powered up the printer using the rear power button. After a little noisy hemming and hewing, the noise stopped, the printer booted up and showed 100% in the high capacity Magenta slot.

The moral of the story is that it does not zero out the carts (not sure about the first one when the problem starts, but certainly not any subsequent carts that are inserted). It is just a measure of twiddling with the carts and spinning the wheel on the side to finally get it to work. Of course if you have a toner jam, you'll have to clear it out before you can hope to get it to work. BTW, this happened to me on a pretty humid day, if it is of any consequence, so it may be worthwhile to try again on a dry day if you can't fix the problem.

I believe you need at least two carts and to alternate between them, or it will forever show empty, but this is only speculation. The important part is that it does not appear to zero out the carts, as some people suspected, which would be disastrous for new carts.

I think the fix for this is to spin that wheel in its intended direction a good five revolutions, at least, and things start to work again (unless yours is clogged of course, then nothing you do with the carts will fix it).

I believe that the grinding sound that you hear is due to either wear on whatever spins the carts or an underpowered motor. Spinning the cart manually probably reduces the friction in the mechanism of the cart enough for the printer to finally be able to latch on and spin it further, clearing the empty error state (finally!).

This problem is probably exacerbated by humidity within the carts, because the toner may become more congealed and make that wheel more difficult to spin. Shaking the toner also helps to make it more uniform within the cart and may help loosen it up.

[DOBERMANN]

Fast forward to March 2020 ... my HP I bought to limp along would not successfully print crack and peel labels, so I figured, "what he heck" and turned on the Versalink that said "empty black toner" when it wasn't ... couldn't beleive it, it's a miracle, it told me to change out the black, which I did (so maybe there is some truth about the chip as previously stated (but not really), it actually printed out the job of crack and peel (about 15 pages by-pass). The machine still sounded ugly, like the teeth were not meshing, So I was like, "hey, I better not waste this opportuity." I started a job (8, 54 page duplex from the tray) ... got through 4 sets -- then I needed to change the Cyan cartride. I did. Job restarted and continued ... then the old "out of black toner" popped up; and both black toner cartridges (that I know have toner in them) would not work ... it printed 6 out of the 8 manuals then went back to lieing to me about the black toner . . . I will someday buy a service manual and figure it out or, I'll just throw it in the dumpster like the Xeox rep. told me to do ... so, let it set for 4 months and keep your fingers crossed ...