Help with Oki C7400

[nodge]

I've just acquired a used OKI C7400 colour laser printer and I'm still
finding my way around the printer and I have a couple of questions.

I can't figure out how you get the paper to exit into the rear paper tray.
Simply opening the back tray and extending the guides doesn't seem to affect
the paper path and it still exits on top of the printer. When I look into
the back of the printer with the back tray open there appears to be a spring
loaded guide where I would expect the paper to exit from which still
deflects the paper upwards to the top of the machine.

I also have a query with respect to paper source. If I open the front
multipurpose tray and load some paper and if I select in the printer
settings "Auto Select Tray" it still picks from the main tray 1. I have to
select "Multipurpose Tray" in the printer settings to get it to pick from
this tray. Any ideas?

This is my first printer with separate toner carts and drums so this is all
a bit new to me. There is a message on the screen saying "magenta toner
low". I have a spare magenta toner cartridge so this isn't a problem as
such. I plan to wait until it actually tells me to change it or the print
quality degrades beyond an acceptable level. What worries me is what if I
replace the toner and then I'm told the drum needs replacing. The manual
says that when I replace the drum I have to fit a new toner cartridge. So in
theory I could fit a new toner cartridge this week and then have to replace
the drum and fit another new cartridge next week - a total of £490 inc. vat
at DAB's prices. Or doesn't it work like that?

When I did my first test prints with some text and a small photo I was
delighted with the quality. Black text was nice and sharp and the colour
photo was superb. I have since tried a few full page photos and there are
obvious defects evident. The most noticeable being a yellowish tinge to the
photo with perhaps a 2" band running top to bottom of what I would think
would be the correct colour (ie no tinge). In the band of good colour there
is a single yellow line running top to bottom - even in the region outside
of the photo which should be plain white. Would the "low" magenta toner
cause this yellow tinge (in an area of blue sky) or is it something more
serious? Would the yellow line on the pintouts mean the yellow drum is
damaged? Or could the yellow drum be responsible for the yellow tinge as
well?

An help at all would be much appreciated.

Thanks

John

 

[nodge]

Further to my first posting I've had the message "Magenta toner empty" so I
had to fit the new one but it didn't make any difference to the problems I
mentioned. As a test I printed 4 test pages each with 10% tint of c, m,y & k
and sure enough they all looked normal except the yellow page which had an
almost white 2" stripe running top to bottom. I suspect the toner is low
even though I'm not getting any error messages on the LCD screen. Had this
been my old black & white laserjet I would have taken the toner cartridge
out and given it a shake and it would probably be ok for a bit longer. Can
you do the same with this printer? Would I need to take both the toner and
the drum out and shake them individually? Does anyone know where I can get
cheap consumables for this printer? (In the UK)

Thanks again

John

 

[David J]

I have had an OKI C7400 for over a year. I always push my supplies to
the limits. When I am told that the toner is empty, I take it out and
shake it from left to right the put it back in. That will usually give
me many more prints. My machine has been telling me to get new drums
for Cyan, Magenta and Yellow for more then two months and at least
2000 to 3000 prints. When it refuses to print, I open and close the
top, it recycles itself, then continues to print. I have seen no loss
of quality so far, and I print full color business cards on my
printer. As some point, the printer may stop printing or the quality
may go down, but until then, I am going to get every print possible
out of my supplies.

Good luck, and hello from Oregon.