Service Color Copiers: NOW!
By Jim Intravia
Copier technicians, who have usually had more work to
do than they could fit into a day, generally don’t like
working on color copiers. For most of my 34 years in
this industry, color copiers have been rare, expensive,
difficult and not worth bothering with. However, most of
those 34 years took place a long time ago! In the last
five years or so this has changed and those of us who
have to make our living repairing machines had better
change with it.
If you work for a dealer or branch, you will be
assigned work and hopefully, training, and will work on
what they tell you to. After a while, no matter how
tough a machine seems, it will become routine. You’ll
still get annoyed at machines that don’t work
consistently well, but that’s what this business is all
about.
If you are an independent dealer, or a technician who
makes his or her living fixing whatever is out there,
you can “pick and choose.” The problem is that today,
unlike years ago, there is not as much work as there
once was. So you can pick and choose but you will
probably find that when you get picky you wind up with
lots of free time. And that means lost income. In the
“good old days” it was a fairly easy choice. You might
have said to yourself: “Do I work on everything and not
have time to finish, or do I work only on the machines
that are easiest for me?” If this was an emergency room
and every machine was a life to be saved, it would be
difficult. But it’s not. These are only copy
machines. Our purpose is not to save lives but to make a
living. So, the smart self-employed technician would
work on what he could make money on-the ones he is most
familiar with.
Pick and Choose in Color
Since the good old days are gone, you probably
realize that you have to work harder to make a
living. Many copier techs also do business handling
other products to replace lost revenue. Good idea. We
should all be learning new things every chance we get.
But, I feel that we should be concentrating on the
strengths we already have. What we have is the ability
to service copiers. Don’t underestimate that. It’s not
that easy.
Color is not easy, not even for Einstein
Boo-Hoo! Color copiers are hard. Maybe four times as
hard as black/white. By the way, do you know that one of
the manufacturers (Minolta I think), once had a copier
that had white toner? I don’t remember why or which
model but I’m not making this up.
Ok, they’re hard. So what! Do you remember when you
first learned how copiers work? The entire xerographic
process is an exercise in Albert Einstein’s proposed
unified field theory. He was trying to understand why
the same rules of energy usage, energy conservation,
motion, rotation, etc. apply in similar ways, to atoms,
electricity, magnetism, gravity, light, heat, static
electricity, kinetic energy. And guess what; all of
those factors are what makes up the xerographic process.
So, copiers are not so easy, even for Einstein. But
if you are a good copier technician, you already know
the really hard theoretical stuff. So, all that’s left
is the work! Since when is a copier technician afraid to
work hard? Working and thinking at the same time are
what we are good at, despite all the jokes we make about
ourselves.
Then and Now
In 1991, after a rash of manufacturer’s introductions
of color copiers accompanied by lots of hype, I wrote an
article entitled “Color Shmolor,” pointing out why color
was still a waste of time in the copier
marketplace. That was true then but that was a long time
ago.
There is little doubt that the marketing people are
right about one thing: Color gets attention. If a page
has one word in color, your eyes go there first. We like
pretty colors, even if they are meaningless. .
One question for you. When you opened this article,
if you looked at it on the screen rather than printing
it immediately, where did your eyes go first? I’ll bet
it was right here.
I’m no salesman
I don’t really care what anyone sells. Whatever it is
I can learn how to fix it and I can do the research
necessary to write service manuals about it. If you are
a technician it doesn’t matter if machines are reliable
or lousy. If you get paid to fix them, that is what you
do.
Power Steering
Sure, people drove 3500 lb. cars without power
steering in 1955 or so. My mother did and she was
4’11.” Today, cars weighing half that have “PS” and you
wouldn’t dream of not having it, even if you’ve been the
governor of Minnesota or California (Jesse and Arnold if
you didn’t get that). Spoiled, that’s what we are and
that’s what customers are. And that’s probably good for
the industry. I’m not one for caring about sales but the
fact is that there will come a time when the only way to
upgrade a copier is to color. Nothing else in the copier
business is new, nor has it been for a long time. What’s
the connection to power steering, you ask? Well, if you
can print out in color on your $150 inkjet at home, and
watch color on TV, on your cell phone and everywhere
else, why wouldn’t you expect it on every piece of paper
that you encounter? Once you get used to color, you will
expect it. It will be a “hardship” not to have color,
just like not having power steering!
What does color involve?
This article is not technical. I just want to give
you a brief idea of what is to come in future articles
and what you will be dealing with regarding color
copiers. As always, they are more complex than their
color printer cousins. Or, as Kermit THE frog might say,
“It’s not easy being Cyan, Magenta and Yellow!
Scan: Although there are some differences, mirrors,
CCDs and scan home switches are pretty much the same, as
far as the technician is concerned.
Laser: Some color machines have four separate lasers;
one for each color (cyan, magenta, yellow and black;
generally abbreviated CMYK).
Developer units: All color machines use four separate
developer units; one for each color.
Drum: Some machines use one drum, receiving the four
colors one at a time. Some use four separate drums, each
of which has one color applied to it.
Transfer belt: Nearly all color machines use a
transfer belt or transfer drum. There are several
configurations (about 15 I think!) The machine can put
the toner on the drum and then transfer it to the belt,
one color at a time. It might put all four colors on one
drum and then transfer it to the belt. It might carry
the paper on the belt and put the colors on the paper
one at a time. The transfer belt may be tensioned and
relaxed depending on its contact with other items
(transfer rollers, bias transfer rollers, photoreceptive
drum or drums, etc.)
Procedures: Machines will have color convergence,
developer calibration, color adjustments. Some require
complicated setup procedures.
Disposability? Some machines have customer
replaceable developer/drum units. Some have technician
serviceable units.
What to do?
Learn them, work on them. Suffer a bit. Just like
you’ve always done.
Good luck.
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