🚀 go-pugleaf

I've had a Toshiba BD-4511 copier for several years (various copiers for 20
years), and here are some of their idiosyncrasies:

1/ Humidity drives them crazy.  On hot humid days, (we rarely use air
   conditioning in our house) copies look just like you described!

2/ The faintness can also come from the charge wires not doing their job.
   There are two such charge wires somewhere in the machine around the drum.
   They are about the size of human hair.  Be CAREFUL not to wreck them!
   To do their job right, they have to be WELL insulated,as they carry
   a charge of about 10 KV>

3/ Carefully scrutinize the interior (lid up) for a VERY fine transverse
   wires in a trough holder.  Carefull scrutinize the left-right plastic
   terminal ends of that wires' holders for a cruddy buildup of black soot,
   the so-called 'toner' material.

4/ With tissue swabs, etc., mop up all soot.  All plastic surfaces around
   those terminal ends should be spotless.  (If you are uncertain, and if you
   can slide the whole wire-trough-holder out, clean more, and measure the
   resistance of the wire-to-ground.  It has to be hundreds of megohms or
   more for things to work right).

5/ Blotchy prints are also caused by a dirty seleniuym drum, but cleaning that
   item should be your LAST resort.  Believe it or not, you can clean it with
   metal cleaner (I used fine toothpaste), but the chances of getting a good
   copy is pretty slim after one such amateurish cleaning.  The technician that
   serviced mine was able to do so before my very eyes, but he knew how to get
   that selenium drum out in the open for careful and proper stroking and
   wiping. That's pretty imporatant.)

6/ Generally clean up any soot laying around the innards. Be careful NOT to
   touch the selenium drum (shiny golden brown colored cylinder) or wires.

7/ The soot run-off catcher box fills with soot ("toner") every few months.  
   That's still good toner; I just dump it back into the toner hopper. (It 
   arises from all the "black" you create when copying black objects and
   copying with the lid up, I think).


Hope this fixes your problem!

Ang. C.