Scratch on a Fuser Roll

[che.c]

Hi a quick question, I run a DC260 and a 250, which obviously use fusers. Now you usually get a decent amount of high quality print out of one of these (I switch out to an old fuser if I'm printing on A4, A3 or using it to fold) but lately I've been having the fuser get a little nick taken out of it, and this leaves a pale spot in the print.

This has happened to a few fusers, and now just back from the holidays it's happened to one that's only printed about 4 jobs!

Has anyone else experienced this? And if so, does anyone know of a way to 'massage' out that little scratch or otherwise repair it? We're on a maintenance contract here so if I need a new fuser I just order one up - but it seems very wasteful.

 

[PineyBob]

Fuser rollers in general can not be "Massaged" due to the material used.

I would be more concerned as to why this happening. One thing that used to cause premature wear was heavy out of spec stock.

Some Xerox devices have a disclaimer to this effect in their user guide

 

[che.c]

We don't run really heavy stock and this doesn't seem to be linked with what stock we're running - I haven't noticed any particular pattern as to what takes a chunk out of the roller. I have noticed that it happens a lot more on the 260 than the 250 though.

 

[bphilippi]

I had this problem with the DC8000 but we tend to run SRA3 stock at 300gsm quite a bit. We've found that it is the fuser drying out and the paper sticking to the roll so we were ending up with the rubber completely stripping off up to 50mm on the inboard side.

So every morning I tip a capful of oil on the doping roll and fuser life has doubled since then. If you could get your tech to take the cover off your fuser, try doing this every morning. Just make sure that you turn the fuser to get any excess oil off afterwards or the sheets will wrap around the roll if there is too much oil on the roller.

If the 260 uses wax based toner (my experience is only with oil based fusers and I have not worked on a 260) then there's not too much you can do apart from trying a different stock.

Some coated stocks can cause this problem where the clay comes off and builds up in the fuser, drying it out.

 

[che.c]

The 'ol 260 doesn't use fuser oil, interesting info about the roller picking up the coating and degrading though.

I did find out one way to repair it - use a blowtorch. Heat up the material until it's toasty warm (but not burnt) and the nicks and scratches pop out. Unless the material's been removed by a particularly bad gash, in which case there ain't much you can do. That said, it's not exactly easy to get the roller out to use a blowtorch on it, so it's more of a curiosity than a fix.