Caring for your Copier
One of the most expensive and necessary pieces of equipment you can get for your office is a photocopier. Depending on the volume of pages you need produced, you may have to pay thousands of dollars to get one that can accommodate your needs. This includes spending money on maintenance which can rack up thousands of dollars if you want to keep your copier running well.
The good news is irrespective of the model you have, you can avoid those expenses by following a few simple maintenance tips:
Clean it inside/out
It does not take long to wipe down a copier from the outside so you should do this every day. Use a clean paper towel to dust the unit from the outside. Open all of the doors it has and give the interior a good cleaning as well. Be gentle though as this piece of equipment can get damaged easily. Use a mild cleaner and paper towel to wipe it down and use a duster spray to remove dirt from small crevices in the machine. This will prevent dust from building up inside.
Check toner levels
The toner is what the copier uses to print copies that you need so if you run out of it, the content on those copied pages will be indecipherable. Don’t wait for this to happen before replacing your toner. As soon as you suspect the copier is running low, replace it with a new toner immediately. Otherwise, the copier will be under stress trying to make copies with less toner than it is designed for. Always keep extras handy to prevent this from happening.
Don’t fill the copier
The worst thing you can do with your copier is leave it filled to the brim with paper. Each model has a different capacity for paper and your copier will not be designed to accommodate more than it can hold. Check the paper capacity by looking at the level line on the tray. Always fill below this line so that you don’t end up with a jammed machine.
One of the things you can do to prevent paper from crinkling up is to fan the stacks from one corner. This will allow air flow between the pages and you can fill the copier easily as well. Plus, if you use thick paper, you will need to load a limited number of sheets.
Prevent lined copies
If your copies have lines on them, that means the copy roller is dirty and needs to be cleaned by a professional. Only a trained professional can remove and clean this part of the machine which can lead to a hefty maintenance bill. Prevent that from happening by running a couple of blank copies on clean paper. This will reduce those lines and prevent toner buildup.
Lines form on copies when the paper jams before the fusing process is complete resulting in extra toner. These can also appear if there is a spot on the glass of the copier. Keep it clean by using a soft cloth and a glass cleaner that does not have alcohol in it and also clean the ‘slit glass’ for dirt and debris.
Finally, after you buy the copier, do spend some time to care for the equipment regularly.
