I've been looking for a printer/copier for the shop for sometime and stumbled across this Kyocera on Craigslist. It was a 2013 model that supposedly worked fine. Being it was a color copier, printer and fax machine all in one with a $200 price tag, I was all over it. The guy that I dealt with was very nice and ran a very nice business die cutting foam. He made a copy as I was standing right there to prove that everything worked as it should. Admittedly, he mentioned that they only used it for black and white copies and the counter surely proved this. So, the deal was made and in the truck it went.
When I finally got it home, I connected it to the network, installed the drivers and was able to get it to print relatively easy. However, I had some trouble with the magenta printing correctly. I happened across the self cleaning menu and so I ran all of the options several times. After each cleaning,it got better and better. I was all excited until I received the "Add Toner" message. So, thinking it was simply out of toner, I ordered more. When the packet of toner finally arrived, I installed them, re-powered the machine and waited for it to run through it's warm up cycle only to find the same "Add Toner" message.
I was a bit perplexed so I turned to the internet for answers. What I immediately found was a bit disheartening. First off, who knew there were forum boards for printers? Secondly, this particular model is know for having this issue because of problem with the toner supply drive. Luckily, Kyocera has a fix for this and an accompanying bulletin.....however, the printer has to be almost completely torn apart.
After some more internet searching, I found Printer Source in Pa. Their website is HERE. I called them up to explain the problem and lucky for me, I happened to get a tech repair man of the phone. This guy knew his printers....and subsequently, knew the problems associated with them. After a little digging on his end, he confirmed the issue I was having with factory techs at Kyocera and sent me a copy of the tech bulletin. This bulletin was 50 pages long with detailed step by step instructions on how to disassemble and replace the defective parts. Once I said that I wanted to attempt this repair, they were also able to get me the parts I needed.
Oh yeah, the bulletin said that this was an 8 hour job...
See those white parts....they are the issue....
Well, after seven hours and a couple of mistakes regarding the timing of the components, it's printing. I really do not want to have to do that again......
