Panasonic KX-P6300 problem

[peterpurves]

OK, I know it's old, but can anybody help me make it last a bit longer
please?

A black horizontal smudgy line is appearing on every page about a third
of the way down - about 3 inches long and 1/8" wide. The first page is
always the worst, but it's there on subsequent pages as well.

Is there a way of curing this please?

Many thanks - Peter

 

[zakezuke]

A black horizontal smudgy line is appearing on every page about a third

of the way down - about 3 inches long and 1/8" wide. The first page is
always the worst, but it's there on subsequent pages as well.

I think I might know this unit. Tiny laser? 600dpi? About the size
of a 1/2 a breadbox, or 4 packs of crumpets stacked ontop each other?
Takes toner that comes in a complex bottle that slides, pull the
release tape, and dumps it into the process unit?
http://www.serviceworks.com/prodcat/sw-lslas.html

I had the KX-p6500 for a while. I didn't use much except for
envelopes, until I figured out it was the driver that was causing win2k
sp4 to crash, and it seemed pointless to conintue using it in HP
emulation as it emulated a 300dpi HP that I already had. By this point
the process unit was going and it didn't seem hip to replace it.

There simply is nothing to these units. You have your "process unit"
as Panasonic likes to call them which basicly have your developer and
drum all intragrated into one piece. You have your fuser down the
road. They were easy for panasonic to support, "does this, replace the
proccess unit" which I believe was reccomended after 15,000 pages or
so. Mine is marked KX-pep4, but I see web references to kx-pep5.
Open cover, pull the at the handels marked with orange circles, and
curse when you get black powder on your good pants.

The symptoms you describe could easily be the waste bin inside the
process unit over flowing and spewing onto the paper. I think I
rebuilt mine at one point but it was a huge mess which solved one
problem but showed I was also in need of a new drum. I can't remember
where the waste bin inside it was. Also could be the drum which is one
of the few parts you can actually see if you pull the unit. There is a
remote chance that it could be loose toner in the printer, but I doubt
it.

The good news is chances are you can solve the problem without a screw
driver and £100.00 or so. The bad news is it makes you scratch your
head and wonder if an old printer is worth it. In the big scheme of
things it's an extra 1p a page for the developer, which could be a
decent/soso deal if you find a cheap resource for toner. Size is a
big factor, this unit was smaller than your average inkjet. In my neck
of the woods, going with the Panasonic toner pack and buying the
process unit is actually equal in cost per page to a cheap inkjet, well
I know in reality I got more than 15,000p from the process unit, but
going by the offical numbers.

It is remotely possible one could clear the waste toner with a screw
driver and tiny spanner. If this is indeed the problem.

 

[peterpurves]

That's the printer, as you describe. Much like the KX-P6500. Thanks
for taking the time to reply - I'll check it out. Might be worth
buying a replacement process unit (I have a huge quantity of toner
left). Thanks again for the help - Peter

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Although I am not familiar with the KXP6300, I own and use a KXP4420,
which I believe has some similarities, but like most printer companies,
Panasonic changes their consumables with each model.


The first thing to try to determine is if replacing the consumables
fixes the problem. If you have some older but still even slightly
functional consumables, then trade them one by one and try to determine
if the problem changes or disappears. If so, you can be faily certain
the problem is part of the consumables. Does your model have numerous
consumables (like drum, developer and toner) or just one or two parts.
which parts? Sometimes just gently and carefully cleaning parts can
help (do not expose the printer drum to long term brighter lighting).

Art






You may just need to replace one part, like the drum, or there may have
been bigger problem with the electronics.

 

[zakezuke]

Although I am not familiar with the KXP6300, I own and use a KXP4420,

which I believe has some similarities, but like most printer companies,
Panasonic changes their consumables with each model.

Anything in the kx-p4000 series doesn't resemble the kx-p6300/p6500 at
all. Both were designed from the ground up to be vertical, putting the
fuser on top so it didn't need a fan, and employed the use of LEDs
rather than the more traditional laser. It is very much alien to even
modern laser printers. It took raw toner like the 4450i but employed a
special bottle and release tape to put it in like the TI micro laser.
There is no toner waste bin to speak of, in theory it's "recycled" in
the combo delveoper drum "process unit". In reality waste toner builds
up everywhere till it starts spewing out the sides. It also featured a
standby mode making this a very good consumer printer that only kicked
into 500watt mode when printing. The end user only need to replace the
raw toner and the developer unless the fuser goes in which case, lots
of luck. But dispite the ease of use and bonehead easy maintance, this
was not a popular printer even though it had a much smaller footprint
than any inkjet. People wanted color and didn't want to replace a $150
process unit, and it was slow even by 1990s standards.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Thanks for the correction. I now recall the model you refer to, it
looked like a small computer tower, if that's the one you describe.

I almost bought one, from the sounds of it, I'm glad I did not.

The KX-P4420 is also not what I would call a low maintenance printer.
The waste toner auger in the head unit always clogs with toner powder
which then backs up and spills back onto the drum leaving smudgy
horizontal lines and requires disassembly of the whole head unit to
clear out the packed toner.

I still use it because I know the printer so well now, I know what to do
when it starts acting up, but I certainly am not impressed with the design.

It is cheap to run, since it basically only needs toner (the developer
seems to last a very long time) and someone gave me 3 OEM toner
cartridges for free, making it really cheap to run ;-) I did have one
experience with a damaged drum, (replacement for the unit was something
like $150-200) but I found out it uses the same dimensioned drum as
found in the HP II series cartridges, so I replaced it for $10 from a
rebuilder. I did have to exchange the end gears from the damaged drum,
since the HP ones were not compatible with the Panasonic.

Art

 

[zakezuke]

I almost bought one, from the sounds of it, I'm glad I did not.

Hey worked well enough, took raw toner, took up little space. Not as
cool as the 4200 in many aspects but what do you expect from a toaster
sized laser. And the output was superb esp if you managed to pop in a
compatable 72pin simm.

The KX-P4420 is also not what I would call a low maintenance printer.
The waste toner auger in the head unit always clogs with toner powder
which then backs up and spills back onto the drum leaving smudgy
horizontal lines and requires disassembly of the whole head unit to
clear out the packed toner.

I had the kx-p4450i my self. Huge sucker with two 500p trays and
accepted raw toner from bottle that sat under the top paper tray. When
you bought new toner it came with a new waste bin enough though you
could dump the waste toner out. In a pinch one could use the waste
toner again with only minor loss of detail.