Phaser 7300 grinding noise

[Carnivore]

Hey all. Ok here's my problem.

Have a Xerox Phaser 7300 color laser printer here. Apparently it just started making this horrid grinding noise thismorning for no apparent reason. The grinding noise kicks in during the warm up process so after I close the lid from peaking inside, the process begins, after a couple seconds there will be a short grind, pause, grind, pause, then continuous grind(or a pattern similar to that anyway). I havent let the continuous grind go very long before opening the lid to stop it. It sounds like gears slipping and I would like to avoid destroying things if I can. =)

Also, I'm told that thismorning it reported that a new yellow toner cartridge was needed. Somebody replaced it, and now it constantly says it needs to be reseated. I've reseated it several times. I've pulled all cartridges, imaging units, transfer belt, and fuser out, then put'm all back in a couple times, and it still says it. I'm also told the grinding noise was already happening before anybody replaced the yellow toner.

I saw in another post that sometimes the transfer belt can come of its bead or some such thing. I pulled it out and couldnt see anything that looked to be off track. I turned by hand a bit and didnt notice any difficulties.

I've also looked at all the gears visible from the top and dont see any chewed teeth or plastic chunks laying anywhere.

Xerox's site just says to call their service guys for any bad noises. Sooo, because we need this printer a Xerox Tech is coming on monday... But for $273 for the first half hour and around $50 for each additional 15 min, I wanna try and fix it first. =)

So anyway, if anybody could give me some clues, I would be gratefull. Thank you





Dave

 

[marty5261]

Dave, do 2 things, first look at the top of teh new toner cartridge, there should be a small square window, use the handle of a screwdriver to tap on it to dislodge any toner build up. There is a rod that comes to the top of that window and the magnet on the top cover needs to see it, if not then you will see a missing/reseat toner cartridge. Second, remove all the drum assy w/ toner cartridges and the transfer belt, on the back inside of teh printer where you just removed these you will see 3 spring loaded copper contacts for each drum, they stick up from the bottom. If you take a small screwdriver you can pop each one of these up, the 3 contacts are part of contact assy, the whole black plastic housing comes out. Once out use alcohol and clean these contacts just by pouring it on them and manually pushing them up and down, then reinstall everything and reboot the printer. What you are looking for on the transfer belt is on the underside of the belt itself, it is a rubber bead that if it separates from the belt it will cause jamming grinding noises, if you look on both sides under the belt it should be apparent if it has separated. Good luck.

 

[Carnivore]

Thanks for the info Marty. Thats good info to know in the future. Here's an update of my situation.

Our Xerox dealers came in to do a little troubleshooting themselves free of charge to us. They had a full set of known good imaging units plus some other parts to use for troubleshooting and ended up narrowing it down to the Yellow Imaging Unit. That was indeed the culprit. We have new imaging units, however I didnt want to try those because I didnt want to risk damaging them.

So our dealers are going to cancell the appointment for the high dollar Xerox techs on monday.

All is well and good now, and again, thanks for the valuable information Marty. =)

 

[marty5261]

Glad to hear you got it running. There have also been situations where the imaging drums themselves get bound up due to the toner clotting inside of them.