Xante Ilumina / Oki c9600 toner fade on heavy stock

[andy1]

Hey guys,

Still having problems with the Xante, this one quite an important issue if anyone has any experience?

When printing heavy stock the toner quality is very poor, most prints have a marble effect and black (pure K) text at or below 8pt is unreadable. This size and quality requirement is very important for business cards. The effect is presenting on every colour, I printed an ID check pattern on 135gsm gloss and then 330gsm Ivory board, the 135gsm was 100% perfect but the 330gsm was faded with light (even white) patches in places (on all 4 colours).

The above test indicates toner, drum and waste toner are not the issue. I considered transfer belt and fuser after Xante support replied to my email, they are on order but I don't know is likely to be causing this issue on heavy stock alone? The issue occurs on anything 300gsm+ regardless of A4/SRA3, I have tried 9 different types of card, all digital laser guaranteed.

The consumables' life is not the issue, even though they are low: 6-15% on colour drums and 10-30% on colour toner. I know these are not the issue as the worst problem is on black where the drum is 90% and toner is 80%. The black toner is compatible, but all the colours are genuine and they still have the same issue, so it's not compatible toner at fault either. Another note is even when the black toner was genuine the marble effect was still present.

Basically I am asking if fuser or belt cures this, and if not is it something you have to 'live with' when using the Xante? I sincerely hope it is a fault with a consumable as it makes the Ilumina - a business card printer - useless for business cards otherwise.

Any help would be appreciated.

I can provide some advice to other Ilumina users: Contact Europe support, they respond within a few hours and give excellent, clear advice. I've heard other support is a bit slow.

Thanks,
Andrew C

UPDATE: to anyone reading this thread:
Marble issues are due to uneven stock surface, smooth digital stock's should not present the issues I am having.
Disappearing print on high coverage may well be down to the printers design, as the toner feed trough is only small. I will not be testing this so can't provide any further info but it may be related to my use of compatible toner. With regards to the toner, my advice when buying compatibles is to purchase one colour - Black - to run a test on backgrounding and print quality, I'd then slowly move onto 1 colour at a time in case it damages your drums. Some compatibles are more trouble than they're worth.

 

[Keith]

Hey Andy, it's Keith! It could be the belt as it is more important than what you would think. I always thought it just moved the paper through the machine but it actually is very important in the fact that it helps with the charge. If it's old and weak it may not be producing a strong enough charge to get through the heavy stock (but can still get through the thin stock). It's been a few years since I had a belt problem so I could be wrong. Andy, I know you have a supplier, but the one I use (therichardsonco.com) will provide free phone support if you purchase consumables from him. He is very good. If it wasn't for him, I would have thrown my Xante out the window.

 

[andy1]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for your reply!

My first thought after reading up online regarding transfer belts was the charge was the issue, but I spoke to a tech who said the belts in the Xante do nothing but move the paper, despite a lot of online sources saying otherwise. I think the first thing to replace will be the transfer belt.

Something else worth stating is I printed a full sheet of black a few weeks back, I had to print 48 SRA3 sheets for the job. The first one at 100% K came out terrible with mainly grey print (not enough black toner was applied), but then I changed to composite black which was 100% K + about 10-20% of each colour and the print was perfect, even under high-res scan the K toner was fully covered. This seems strange, my only theory is the extra charge required for the colour toner kicked the belt into action...any ideas? This would also put a faulty fuser out of the equation, as well as faulty drum or toner cartridge.

Based on the pure black experience I can only think of software issues...but now I'm really confused .

 

[Keith]

...but I spoke to a tech who said the belts in the Xante do nothing but move the paper, despite a lot of online sources saying otherwise.

Wow. You must have dialed the wrong number and spoke with a monkey. I first learned of the belt charge through Xante! In fact, they sent me three charge files for the belt! That's probably the difference between level one and level two tech support.

It can't be the fuser as that will give you adhesion issues or ghosting. A composite or rich black will always give a nice, deep black but it's expensive when you are doing a black only job and are charging for a black only job. It's not too bad if it's a color job, other than a slight increase in your consumable cost. 100% K is normally a dark gray, especially in the world of offset. But in the world of digital, 100% K should look like a rich black. My Xerox does a nice 100% K but my old Canon IR3220 sucked. So, I don't think the other color charges kicked the belt up at all.

 

[andy1]

The tech who said that works for a supply company, in all fairness that company doesn't deal a lot with the Xante and I'm not sure how much of a 'tech' he truly was. No matter, both the fuser and belt are on their way and I'll use the belt first, both will come in handy at some point and hopefully one will solve my problem!

The grey I'm speaking of was attrocious, it was as if the top layer of toner was scraped off, if I tried to print such a colour I'd make it as 50% K...a very light shade of grey! The toner started off what I'd expect to be 100% K but then quickly moved onto 50% K after a few inches. It seemed to me that the drum was unable to draw toner from the cartridge, but that is not true due to the amount of K toner used to create the composite print.

I weighed the drum unit complete with toner before and after the 48 page black job, and on composite colour the black was still used over twice as much as colour.

Can I ask if you get good results on the Xante on thick media please please? Specifically 350gsm or above and printing pure K toner (not composite). I'm worried it's a printer limitation.

 

[RNRPRINTINGNMAILING]

in all fairness you have an over priced OkI
I have the Cl 30 and the Oki c9600
and the Cl30 has problems not my oki c9300
i do all kinds of colors including tints.
and yes it def is the transfer belt, and a the fuser.
My friend had the same problem.
good luck

 

[andy1]

in all fairness you have an over priced OkI
I have the Cl 30 and the Oki c9600
and the Cl30 has problems not my oki c9300
i do all kinds of colors including tints.
and yes it def is the transfer belt, and a the fuser.
My friend had the same problem.
good luck

Hey,

Thanks for your reply, I've heard a lot of users compare the Xante models to the original Oki's and say the Xante is unreliable and poor quality. I am looking into buying an Oki es9410 when jobs permit, the click charge can be as low as 8.4p/SRA3 on volume.

As the transfer belt obviously does apply a static charge how on earth can Xante claim to feed 502gsm through a printer with the same belt as the Oki es9410, yet the Oki is restricted to 300gsm. Software can't change the physical construction of a consumable, unless I'm missing something.

Anyway, thanks guys I've got the transfer belt now and will post back once I've done some tests.

Andy

 

[Massy]

Hi,

We had exactly the same problem with an OKI ES3640e. It was impossible to print anything with solid backgrounds in heavyweight card or even coated paper (mainly gloss).
Despite numerous visits by the service engineers, the problem was never solved. We got fed up and we went for a Xerox DC242 and we never looked back. It handles extremely well heavy stock. I know it's not in the same league as the OKi but you will save a lot of time and hassle.

Lesson learned, you must always do proper print tests on the machine before you commit.

 

[andy1]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply, I might consider looking into the Xerox or a Konika Minolta in a few months.

To be fair some Xante users use the printer for years and never have to print a document that has problems. Considering the low purchase cost it's something I took a risk on, that and the fact I got it for less than 1/4 of RRP. It's been really good on flyers so far so it does have it's uses, even if the 'heavy stock' feature turns out to be useless.

It's very strange how glossy flyers are printing well for me, but poor quality for you...considering the printers are the same inside. There must be something about the way they're made that makes every machine unique, I've used colorcopy and Silver Image gloss coated media, did you use either of these?

I invested in the Ilumina with a view to working around problems that cropped up, it just appears there are more than expected!

Thanks again,
Andy

 

[sfhellwig]

Hey,

Thanks for your reply, I've heard a lot of users compare the Xante models to the original Oki's and say the Xante is unreliable and poor quality. I am looking into buying an Oki es9410 when jobs permit, the click charge can be as low as 8.4p/SRA3 on volume.

As the transfer belt obviously does apply a static charge how on earth can Xante claim to feed 502gsm through a printer with the same belt as the Oki es9410, yet the Oki is restricted to 300gsm. Software can't change the physical construction of a consumable, unless I'm missing something.

Andy

The Xante can do the heavier weight because they claim they open the Oki box and make modifications that allow it to do so. One of these mods include sensors that will indicate if a very heavy paper is being used, keeping the machine from scratching all of the drums. We just purchased one of these and the Illumina Production Press is not exactly the same as any of the Oki or PSI machines.

Having said that it is an Oki box and they made it sound like the revisions were minimal so I'm not sure how the quality would drop that poorly. All of this info came directly from one of their national level sales people through a web cam link. Come on, they wouldn't lie to my face.....right?

We just got the Xante box this month and haven't had a chance to make it prove itself yet. I will be watching for the black mottling .

 

[andy1]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

I've discovered it's certain media causing the issue. Anything heavy except ColorCopy has the issue, 350gsm ColorCopy regular is perfect quality wise. 330 and 400gsm weights in anything else produces the horrible marble effect on all colours, not just black!

ColorCopy is cheaper but it's really flimsy, so it might just be something to live with and add matt laminate. Although it'll have to be run A4 as anything longer (SRA3) ends up with mis-registered colours in the last 6 inches, quite disappointing really.

It's not just heavy weight though, some samples I was sent on textured 120gsm paper produce poor quality output, the surprising thing is the effect does not correspond to the texture of the paper, it's completely random.

Again can anyone advise the business card board they use please, I've tried Essential, EBB Ivory Board and Royal Kent Ivory, the best results were from offset board but the curling was terrible.

Thanks,
Andrew