How do you maintain your photocopy machine?
Read our tips on how to maintain your photocopy machine.
Whether it is a home or a business photocopier, whether it was a refurbished buy or brand new out the box, your photocopier is only as useful as the amount of time and effort you put into maintaining it. Without proper maintenance, you will have to replace your copier much sooner.
Copiers are a business requirement. Without them, not a lot can be done. It’s not just printing and copying that they are capable of doing, but they can also scan, something that is vital in a bustling company of any kind.
When a copier is left for too long without maintenance or a service, it can quickly become faulty which can, in turn, lead to downtime. Along with worrying about downtime, there is also the fact that copiers can just become difficult to use, which in turn makes the workplace a frustrating environment to be in.
All of this can be avoided if you just have a few tips and a little hands-on know-how. And if you have no time or interest in maintaining the copier yourself, you can always call on a service professional to help you out. You may get the latest updates sent straight to your phone with the EskomSePush app. Keep up with Eskom, City Power in Johannesburg, and the City of Cape Town by following their respective social media accounts. To find out more about the best printers for sale in South Africa, or our affordable copier rentals, get in touch with a consultant today. We also offer SME financing options too.
How do you maintain a copier? Read our 7 Maintenance Tips
If you are dedicated to maintaining your copier the right way, and on a regular basis, you will easily be able to prevent problems and eventual downtime. All of these tips you can do yourself, and they can be used in both the home and the office environment.
1. Turn off your copier
In the office, in particular, there is the temptation to leave the photocopier on overnight and over the weekend but this is a big mistake. Not only is it absolutely not necessary but it is also a complete waste of power.
If you make a habit of turning off your copier in the evening and over weekends, you can give your copier a longer lifespan.
2. Give your copier time to warm up
When you return to your office you should give your copier time to warm up before you start sending it loads of requests. This might take some time and it is important that while you are waiting you don’t rush the system by constantly pressing buttons or sending more requests. Doing this won’t make the machine work any faster!
3. Wipe down the glass
The quickest and easiest way to do a little maintenance would be to wipe down the glass. Over time, the copier is going to accumulate dust and a few ink smudges. It can help to wipe the glass from time to time to reduce the risk of your copy having unwanted marks.
Before you reach over for that random cloth, you need to know that there is a specific cloth that you will need as well as a cleaning product suitable for cleaning copier glass.
While you are cleaning the glass you might as well have a go at the document feeder, which can also get a little dirty.
4. Load paper the right way
Those moments when your copier is screaming at you to load the paper the right way is a good reminder to take note of how you are loading your paper. Many of us are in such a hurry to get printing that we shove the paper in any old way and this can end up creating more problems than you’d necessarily want.
To avoid paper jams and to make sure that you can clean, flat prints, make sure that you load the paper the right way. And while you are at it make sure that your papers are clean. If they have been sitting on one side for a while, they might have a little dust on them, and this dust is going straight into your printer, which in turn can become problematic.
5. Empty the waste toner
Within the printer is a little reservoir that collects waste toner, and when it gets full it can cause your printer to completely shut down. Replacing or emptying your toner waste is actually very easy to do and your printer is designed to inform you when the reservoir is full.
6. Be paper wise
Not all paper is made the same way. Some paper is just better quality than the other brands and you need to make sure that you have chosen the best quality paper for your needs.
Lower quality paper, as well as paper that has been recycled, tends to gather dust which in turn can clog up your printer.
7. Call in a professional
When in doubt about anything or if you just don’t have the time to get around to it, sometimes the best thing you can do is call in a professional to do the maintenance for you. It could be the IT guy you have on speed dial, or if you are hiring a printer, it could be their team that you call on. Either way, it is sometimes best to let the experts handle it.
How to do maintenance on a printer, on your own, need not be as complicated as you think. Instead, if you follow our tips and you make a habit of doing regular maintenance, your copier should have a useful life of at least 5 years.
Depending on the quality of the brand you are using and the amount of work you are doing each day with your copier, you can expect its useful life to be extended beyond those 5 years.
The next big thing to determine is how often your particular photocopier should be given a service. The answer is another one that is determined by a number of factors. From the environment in which the photocopier is being used (is it dusty?) to the number of prints, it is doing each day, the answer to the question of “How often should a photocopier be serviced?” sits at between 2 and 3 years.
Should your printer start giving you problems sooner than the 2-year mark, it won’t hurt to go through the tips above and give your printer a light once over.