peter220950 Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 A quick question, in the hope that amongst the many geniuses/genii out there ther might be some with experience of laser printers. I was recently asked to take an OKI printer to the tip, and thought it might be worth a look, particularly as it had a full set of spare toner cartridges with it. At the worst it would only mean a trip to my local tip instead, so I took it home and plugged it in. Much to my amazement it registered with the computer straight away and loaded the drivers, nothing came up as an error code on the printer, so i pressed print and lo and behold out came a colour print, only it's not quite perfect. As you can see there's a line across the bottom that's not properly printing. First thoughts were that it was the fuser wire or the belt that carries the toner that was at fault, but it is printing something all across, then i wondered if one of the existing toner cartridges is faulty. Rather than spend a fortune on replacing the whole thing piece by piece I thought I would ask if anyone has experience of what it might be? Any thoughts or suggestions gratefully received, it looks as if it might be salvageable? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
antrobuscp Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 I had a few moments, so I did a quick Google for "OKI C3200 print faults". There was a link to a download page for a utility to test the colour cartridges and drums individually. That's probably worth a try. I've only ever used HP laser printers, but I think with some makes the drum/toner are a combined consumable supply whereas others they are separate items. It doesn't look like a toner supply problem, so I'm guessing it relates to an indidual colour drum. The link I found was:- http://www.oki.co.uk/support/printer/troubleshooting/detail.aspx?id=tcm:122-127244&prodid=tcm:122-3903 HTH Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter220950 Posted November 30, 2014 Author Share Posted November 30, 2014 Thanks for that, the more I've thought about it it does look as if it might be one colour that's faulty, as there is still detail in the photo in the affected area. There are certainly separate toners and drums for the colours and black. I have a spare new set of replacement cartridges, so I will run the test and see what happens. I just didn't want to change other bits at random and spend more than the copier was worth. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium DIW Posted November 30, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 30, 2014 I've recently had a similar problem, albeit on a HP Pro 8000. It looks like the Cyan (substitute OKI noun for 'blue' as appropriate) stops printing part way through the print. Does your printer have separate ink cartridges and print heads, or does the cartridge also print directly to the paper? If the former then I would suspect the print head is on its way out. If the latter then changing the ink cartridge ought to do the trick. Hope this helps. Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter220950 Posted November 30, 2014 Author Share Posted November 30, 2014 Thanks, I think it's a self contained toner and print head for each colour so I will change cyan tomorrow and see if it works. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Torper Posted December 1, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 1, 2014 The basic replaceable parts of your Oki printer are basically your four toner cartridges, image drums (in which the toner cartridges sit), transfer belt and fuser unit. Assuming that this happens with every page you print - I presume you've done others with the same result as the one you've shown in your original posting - you can test the toner cartridges either by downloading the useful utility mentioned by Antrobus above (http://www.oki.co.uk/support/printer/troubleshooting/detail.aspx?id=tcm:122-127244&prodid=tcm:122-3903), or simply by printing pages containing a number of boxes filled in with the primary colours. Having seen the picture you have printed, I'm not at all sure that it is a toner fault - I would have thought that had one of the toners been faulty (or empty) it would not have printed properly across the whole page rather than just a part of it. It might also be worthwhile printing a page in greyscale to see if the problem persists then. If the colours still appear OK on the unaffected portion of the page, and if the problem is still there when you print in greyscale, I reckon the problem is more likely to be with an image drum or the transfer belt. It may well be that that is why the original owner decided to ditch it as replacement drums can be quite expensive. If the worst comes to the worst, you should be able to sell the unused toner cartridges on ebay. DT Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter220950 Posted December 1, 2014 Author Share Posted December 1, 2014 Many thanks for that Torper, I took it apart this morning, I hadn't appreciated the toner cartridge was separate to the drum for each colour. I cleaned the drum unit out, (that was fun, blue stuff all over the garden, shed and me, - I look like a Smurf!) and replaced the toner cartridge. Result - the same problem, so it looks as if it's the toner drum for blue, the other colours are coming through o.k. so I don't think there's a problem with the transfer belt. A new head unit looks like it's around £40 to £50 on e-bay, so I may give it a whirl. - It's probably worth waiting for a bit to see what might come up, there's a complete printer on buy it now at the moment for £35.00 but it's in Kings Lynn. If it works for £50 it's still worth it for the saving on colour cartridges for my inkjet, given that I've got two toner cartridges for each colour and black. Many thanks to all for your help and suggestions. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Torper Posted December 1, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 1, 2014 The C3200 is an old printer and image drums come up fairly cheaply from time ti time on auction, eg http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OKI-Genuine-Brand-New-Drum-Unit-CYAN-43460207-For-C3300-C3400-C3450-C3600-/261674553008?pt=UK_Computing_Printer_Scanner_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3ced04ceb0. DT Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Torper Posted December 1, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 1, 2014 Did you try printing in greyscale and if so what was the result? I think that greyscale only involves the black toner, so if you're still getting the defective result in greyscale there may be nothing wrong with the cyan drum. DT Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyewipe Jct Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 Alternatively, create an image with, say, a series of parallel blocks of colour running down the page & then print off four copies - one with the colour of the blocks set to pure black, then pure cyan, yellow & magenta. If there's a problem with an individual toner cartridge, you should soon tell Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter220950 Posted December 2, 2014 Author Share Posted December 2, 2014 Did you try printing in greyscale and if so what was the result? I think that greyscale only involves the black toner, so if you're still getting the defective result in greyscale there may be nothing wrong with the cyan drum. DT Not had a chance to do any more since Monday as I'm away from home at the moment, I will have a go on Friday and see if I can nail it down. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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