Xerox 1000i looking for clues

[pabney]

We seem to be having a recurring banding problem on one of our 1000i machines in the black. The bands are .25" apart. Service is telling me it has to be either the drum motor or the housing. Both of these have been replaced, twice.
The last time only a couple of days ago, and now the problem is back. Replacing the housing seems to fix the problem in the short term, but I think something else might be going on that is causing the housing to go bad.

Although I have service scheduled to look at it again, I am hoping the fine people on this forum might have some other ideas of what the problem could be.

 

[Craig]

Have you tried the 2nd BTB to see if it goes away? Although you would think it would effect all colors.

 

[pabney]

Yes, we have. The only thing that seems to make it go away is to replace the housing, but that only lasts for a day or so.
Service came in yesterday afternoon and they are thinking it might be the auger that pushes the toner into the housing. New one coming in today.

 

[MailGuru]

Just a thought, but, I had this problem on my Versant 2100 when printing on gloss or coated stock. Had service in for months, replaced many parts. Long story short, it finally dawned on me to take a close look at the raw stock before printing. If I held it almost flat so that I could see the the light glancing off of the paper. Son of a gun, if the bands weren't visible before printing as an equally-spaced uneven application of the coating on the raw stock. Not saying that's your problem, but, it probably warrants a close examination. I was using Verso 80# Gloss Cover. They were just bad from the mill. I put those cases aside and went to another pallet and the problem went away.

 

[pabney]

Thanks MailGuru, but that is not it. Stock does not matter.
Tech seems to think it is the auger that pushes the toner into the housing. Seems it is packing the toner to tight and causing the housing to "jump" when it turns.
He is just finishing up installing said auger, and replacing the housing one more time. Should be able to test in just a bit. Of course, the new housing alone is going to fix the issue for at least a day. Won't know until next week if it fixes it long term. Certainly hope so, I have a 10,000 fold and stitch variable data book I have to run next week, and this is the only machine I have that folds and stitches.
Wish me luck, and I will let everyone know if the fix is in or not.

 

[PrintIT]

Did they also try replacing the shaft that drives the drum?
We've had banding before that's been fixed by replacing the drive shaft.

 

[pabney]

Turns out the auger for the black waste system was broken. Replacing it and the housing and drum finally fixed the black. However, it seems it caused a cascading failure for the other colors as well. We ended up changing the augers, housings, and drums on all the colors to get back into production.

 

[Craig]

Wow, who would have thought!