What Are the Must-Haves for a Printer Maintenance Kit?
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Proper maintenance is one of the hardest parts of working with print equipment. Even top-of-the-line printers with cutting-edge technologies are still susceptible to paper jams, fuser assembly problems, and other mechanical issues. Conveniently, there is a printer maintenance kit to keep your machine running longer and more efficiently.
Office managers and employees often wonder why this is the case. Often, the culprit is paper itself. No two sheets of paper are the same, and paper jams will persist until the print industry finds a more uniform media to print on.
Until then, no printer will have the self-cleaning, self-maintaining capability consumers wish to see in their appliances. Employees and IT specialists will need to maintain printers and keep them in optimal running condition in order to prevent expensive downtime from getting in the way of office production.
One of the best ways to do this is to invest in a printer maintenance kit for each printer in the office. This simple step can save a great deal of trouble for office managers and their employees.
What is a Printer Maintenance Kit?
The maintenance kit contains all of the tools and supplies needed to perform preventative maintenance at the appropriate time. Different manufacturers assess different maintenance intervals for the machines they produce, so these periods of time can be anywhere from once a month to once a year.
Also, since every printer model is different, the parts included in individual kits will vary. Manufacturers are generally aware of the most common points of failure on their equipment, and will pack those specific parts into the printer maintenance kit so users can easily replace them when needed.
Many maintenance kits share pieces in common. These are the replacement parts most likely to be included in a commercial laser printer maintenance kit:
- Fuser Assembly. The fuser assembly consists of a pair of plastic rollers. These are the devices that fuse laser toner into paper fibers, physically creating the printed image on the paper.
- Transfer Roller. Transfer rollers are usually located underneath the toner cartridge. These rollers transfer toner particles onto the page using static electricity.
- Pickup Rollers. These are also known as feed rollers or separation rollers. They pick the paper up and feed it into the printer. When they malfunction, the printer may no longer pick up individual sheets of paper, or it may fail to feed paper into the print mechanism.
- Separation Pads. Separation pads apply tension to paper as the pickup rollers feed sheets into the printer. This ensures different types of paper behave in a nearly uniform way. Worn out separation pads can cause paper jams.
- Corona Assembly. The corona assembly is the component that creates the electrical charge that the transfer roller uses to attract toner particles to the paper sheet.
- Fan Assembly. The fan assembly draws air into the printer at a precise rate – just enough to keep the paper flat as it travels through the print mechanism.
Don’t Forget About Cleaning Printer Components
Most printer maintenance kits also include specialized cleaning supplies to keep printer internals dust-free. Whenever a sheet of paper enters a printer, the tension and physical force needed to make it printable often shave off tiny particles of paper in the process. Paper is, after all, a fragile material.
The combined result of thousands of paper sheets flowing through an office printer can lead to a significant amount of paper dust settling in the printer’s mechanical parts. If any of these parts operate in a slightly different way than usual, the entire printer will malfunction and a paper jam is likely.
When a paper jam occurs, the act of removing the paper from the inside of the printer can generate even more paper dust. This is why certain printers jam more frequently than others. Every time a printer has a paper jam, it makes itself more susceptible to future paper jams.
Cleaning your printer’s internal components with the manufacturer-provided fine-bristled cleaning brush can help extend the life of a paper jam-prone printer. Some manufacturers recommend the use of a toner vacuum. Do not try to use a commercial vacuum cleaner to clean your printer.
Ordering a Printer Maintenance Kit & Supplies
Office managers dealing with misbehaving printers need to make sure they have all the parts necessary to guarantee reliable print performance. Kelley Create can help you identify and acquire those components at attractive rates.
Our team can even take care of printer maintenance and supply replenishment for you. This is one of the many bottom-line benefits of managed print services.
Don’t let printer maintenance drag down the efficiency of higher-impact IT processes. Have Kelley Create’s managed print service team take care of your print fleet starting today.