Oki black envelope printing...

[TheProcessIStheproduct]

When printing black on flap, some envelopes want to hit the other three drums and smear the toner, anyone have a workaround?

 

[Fatboysmart]

Yes... I know this problem well. Only way to resolve this is to change the color of the text to 100% black and 1% yellow (or C or M), or put a yellow dot (1% is enough) somewhere in the file. Could even be outside of the printed area. This way the CMY drums are also lowered when printing and your envelopes won't smudge. Drawback is that the life counter of your CMY drums will also lower just as the black one does.

 

[damfino]

Fatboysmart is correct - that's the only fix short of running with the flaps open...

I own ten Oki's to play with, so I'm going to investigate having the black drum swapped to the Cyan position on one of them.

 

[Fatboysmart]

Never thought of that. If you swap them (temporarily) for printing b/w envelopes I guess you could just make the text 100% cyan and it would print in black. To make the drums fit you can easily remove those black plastic blocks on the back wall with a screw driver. I just wonder if the printer can detect that the drums are not in the right slot.

 

[TheProcessIStheproduct]

I wonder if you could take the rollers out of a set of dummy drums, so it detects drums in place but would give you another 1/2" of clearance?

 

[Fatboysmart]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that you can even run this printer with 3 drums completely removed from the machine. I think you needed some additional software to do this. Not sure though. Maybe you can contact OKI and ask?

 

[OkiTech]

Guys, I don't think so. While theoretically that is possible, problem is that every time you open/close top cover, printer draw color patches on ITB and reads them. Making cmy drums "not print" will result in error code. The only way I see this happen if top cover switch would be duplicated and you can open close without machine knowing it. Then there is another problem, the drums are made to be not disassemble, I tried. On other side, they could be just covered up... like use #70text or mylar or leftovers of transparency sheets and carefully cover the bottom portion of the drum but once gain, it could only work if machine does know you swapped them. On other hand, if you print just K, should anything be on the surface of CMY drums, it should be wiped out with first few envelopes, if you experience constant issue, how about cleaning up the printer first including area under the drums. You will need a 3M toner wacuum, yellow rags and manage not to scratch or fingerprint drums themselves but this should be the start. Follow the paper path, make sure that there is no toner residue on the mouth of the fuser and anything else that close to paper travel path.

 

[NeildawgNCP]

I have a Xante machine and there is a software/firmware patch the technician remotely installed that allows me to remove the CMY drums completely to run black only. Totally worth it since we do a LOT of black only envelopes. Just FYI...

 

[OkiTech]

Ok, Mr. show-off, any way you can off-load that patch and offer it to original poster? Wait a second, I am Authorized OKI tech, let me call my people
If such tool/patch exist, there should be a chance I can ask for it and get it.

 

[NeildawgNCP]

If I had it or could get it to you I would, but since I didn't personally install it...sorry.

 

[TheProcessIStheproduct]

Yes patch would be nice, did run with small 4cp type today, does seem to help, but don't like to put the mileage on drums if it can be helped...

 

[Andy Zheng]

Full range for okidata/xante model, we have 9 years experience,any interest just add my skype:sandy11410

thanks

 

[wilson smith]

This is a usual problem I have dealt with many times by using a dot of different colour at the corner of envelopes and sometimes using it at grayscale makes it to work properly

 

[duncndonut]

Just as a matter of point, I see that this thread is old... Switching the cyan and black drums and toners is the easiest solution we've found, just unscrew the black tabs at the back of the machine and run your file at 100% Cyan. Easy peasy! Hope this helps someone, we have an OKI cx3641 with a straight shooter, FYI.