My ricoh printer cl3500 will not print lettering, color is fine

can you print the configuration page does it show up on paper. Could be dev unit or drum unit or a clutch that turns them

The printer driver must be set to print text with the K resin panel.
If the text is part of a bitmap image and not a true-type font then it will print from the coloured panels and be dark grey.
To create the correct green on the card you need to change the RGB values so it prints correctly but look wrong on the badge design program. Even different printers print the same colour differently.

you need to replace the color PCU and black PCU to get rid of the black streak.You can download the manual here:
http://www.ricoh-usa.com/downloads/downloads.asp?tsn=Ricoh-USA&path=http://support.ricoh.com/bb_v1oi/html/oi/rc2/model/cl3500/cl3500en.htm

The print driver might be defaulted to black and white. Change it to color.

Sounds like your black pigment (PGBK-5) cartridge has clogged up the printhead or similar.

You could try running a single Deep clean on the that colour alone (use Right click printer > printing preferences > maintenance tab > Deep Cleaning)

If that doesn't work you will probably need to either:
- clean the printhead (see this thread)
or
- replace the printhead/cartridge

Hope that helps.

According to the maintenance manual, broken lines are caused by the "dithering" setting. Also there is an in depth color calibration process you can execute. Have you checked the PCU unit?

Here is the maintenance manual:
http://www.ricoh-usa.com/downloads/downloads.asp?tsn=Ricoh-USA&path=http://support.ricoh.com/bb_v1oi/html/oi/rc2/model/cl3500/cl3500en.htm

You may have to copy and paste the link into your browser.
If I could be of further assistance, let me know. If this helps or solves the issue, please rate it.
Thanks, Joe


I’m happy to assist further over the phone at https://www.6ya.com/expert/joe_8b8c2cd6ce148309

I came up with a work around for printing black.

I changed the black cartridge with the color cartridge.
Then when I have a letter to print, I change change (or write) the letter text to yellow, red or blue.
Then I can print out a letter.

By printing the text as yellow, red or blue the cartridge will try to print with only 1 color, but will print out black.

If you do not use one of these primary printing colors the out put will be unusable.

I can not of course print out pictures.

Check the transfer roller. Its a black spongy roller in from of the drum. Make sure it is getting good contact. Did you shake the toner cartridge before you installed it?

First, check the text in your records for odd characters. It is sometimes possible in data entry to hit a ctrl-"letter" combination that embeds printer codes in your text and these are invisible in many cases to the application. The easiest way is to break up your print job to sections of records and see if a particular record consistently causes an error.

If your sure however that the printer is the problem...

Then I would check the RAM. The printer has 128MB upgradable to 512MB. Normally you can pull the ram and run jobs on the internal memory, but in this case you would need to swap it out.

I would try cleaning the lasers with the brush inside the door. If that fails, you might try looking at the developers.