Life of a toner cartridge - Black is printing light grey (No warning messages)

[TonyP-Xerox]

I'm guessing it's either the scanner connections or the imaging board. 

If you need help finding a Xerox authroized service provider in your area, send me a private message with your location and I'll see if there are any in your area.

Tony

[HL12846]

Hi TonyP,

I'll give the glass a cleaning but I doubt it will help.

The Xerox 6605 is at our nonprofit Historical Society. Unfortunately we do not have a computer. We had an XP at one time. After 3 years of not being used at all we got rid of it. Matter of fact we do not have Internet either. Our Board (I'm the VP and the Curator) refuses to spend $400 per year for Internet when we have other pressing needs. Our building is literally falling apart from years of neglect.

We DO need a copier and the 6605 that was donated to us has served us well for a few years. I might see if someone can service it at a reasonable cost even though we have no internet. Otherwise, we might look for another donated copier.

I'm retired and worked with Civil Engineers for 41 years, so I have an engineering mind. It seems as if the complete signal from the scanning light is not being transmitted to the guts of the printer. I doubt either end of the cable between the scanning light and the guts has plugs, but I might see if the housing easily comes apart so I can look. Beyond that I would not try to fix it myself.

[TonyP-Xerox]

Hi HL12846, thanks for showing what the copies look like. If the prints are fine but the copies are not, the first thing to try is to clean the glass. I'm not sure it will help but sometimes it does. 

Have you tried a scan to email or desktop to see if the scanner is scanning correctly? If the scan are light too, and you cleanded the glass, I'm guessing that it will be an issue with the scanner but either way, you will probably need a service call to have the issue resolved. 

TonyP

[HL12846]

Thanks TonyP. We use to shake the cartridges where I worked (State Government). We did a lot of printing so I'm familiar with shaking a cartridge.

I shook all the cartridges for the 6605. It did not help. I printed the demo page. It looks good. I then made a copy of it on the 6605. Not so good. Both are shown below. Copying from the ADF made no difference in quality.

[TonyP-Xerox]

Hi David, if the device is stating you are at 40% I would not rush out to purchase a new cartridge. If you only made a few hundred copies in the past year, the cartridge should have a lot of life left in it. That being said, the low volume could be part of the issue. Some of what you experince could be due to environmental factors like heat and humidity combined with the low utilization. Think of what happens to any powder when it sits for a while, it can start to clump together and then it does not want to pour evenly. In this case, it could be the cause of your light copies. 

What I suggest doing is taking the cartridge out of the device and shaking it. Take a look at this article the shows the process, Remove the Black Toner (Dry Ink) Cartridge, Gently Shake the Cartridge 6 Times, Reinstall the Cartri.... 

Tony-P

[HL12846]

Greetings,

The non-profit organization I belong to was given a "gently used" WorkCentre 6605 by another organization. We've had the 6605 for about a year and have printed about 200-250 pages. Since we do not have a computer we use the 6605 only for copying (or scan and print).

Lately, black is now appearing as very light grey. I suspected the black toner might be "empty" but the control panel says 40%. I read in the User's Manual that when consumables (like the fuser or a toner cartridge) are close to end-of-life a message will be displayed. The control panel does not display any warning that something is near the end-of-life. I'm hesitant to buy a new cartridge if that is not the problem. Does anyone have a suggestion or recommendation?

Regarding toner cartridges... I read in the User's manual that toner cartridges have a predetermined usable life span. Will a message appear in the control panel if that "date" is reached or does the control panel only guage how much toner is left? Our 6605 is NOT attached to a computer so I don't know if the 6605 knows what the correct date is or not. Does the box the toner comes in have an expiration date printed on the box?

Thanks - David