You rely on your copier, and believe it or not, your copier relies on you. It needs you to treat it well. Otherwise, it might stop working the way you expect it to. here are a few common-sense things you can do to keep your copier working properly:
1. Don’t set food or drink on or near the copier.
Coffee and copiers don’t mix. Neither do food crumbs and copiers. You’d be surprised how many times our technicians hear “I just set it down to make a quick copy, and then…….” If you do happen to spill anything wet on the copier, call your service team as soon as possible – even if the copier still appears to be working fine.
2. Watch out for that ring.
Not too many things are harder than the glass surface of your copier, but diamonds are. It’s very easy to scratch the glass surface with a diamong ring, especially when reaching out to flip over or remove a document after it’s been copied or scanned. And once it’s scratched, replacing the glass is the only way to fix it.
3. Don’t leave boxes or anything else too close to the sides of the machine.
On most copier and MFP devices, the finisher trays on the sides of the machines aren’t always stationary. For larger jobs, they move up and down as neccessary. Blocking them from being able to move freely could harm the machine.
4. Don’t kick the paper trays shut.
We’ve all been there. We bend down to add a new ream of paper to the paper tray but neglect to close the door. At that point, it’s soooooooo tempting to give it a gentle kick closed. However, even a gentle kick could break the door, bend a hinge, or just knock it out of alignment. And considering it might be the 75th time you’ve “gently” kicked it, it’s only a matter of time until it does break.
5. Don’t force toner into the machine when it won’t fit.
Toner cartridges are designed to fit into your machine rather easily. If it doesn’t appear to be fitting easilly enough, please stop trying and double check that it’s the right cartridge, and that you’ve read the directions for replacing it properly. Don’t force it! If you absolutely can’t get it to go, call your technicians and ask that they come out to take a look.
6. Don’t press the start button too hard or more than once.
We’re all in a hurry. Sometimes, copiers can run a little slower than we’d like. When it does, we usually hit the start button again. And again. And sometimes we do so with far more force than neccessary. Additional force applied to a start button, whether it’s a physical button or a touch-screen, can quite easilly harm the electronics that lay below it. Patience is a virtue, someone once said.
7. Don’t put staples and paperclips through the document feeder.
If you have to copy or scan multiple documents in one go, it’s always far easier to do so through the document feeder instead of one at a time on the glass surface. However, if you’re going to do so, make sure there are no staples or paperclips on the documents that you’re feeding through. They could easilly harm the belts and pickup wheels that make the document feeder work.
8. Don’t load the wrong sized paper into the drawer.
Most paper drawers can fit several different paper sizes. However, if you don’t set the fences that surround the paper to the correct paper size, the machine gets confused. If it is expecting to pull a 11″ x 17″ sheet from the drawer, but instead gets an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet, it will probably end up jamming.
And lastly – do we even need to go over why you shouldn’t copy any of your body parts? No, we probably don’t.