How to Keep your Copier in Best Condition for Years

No matter how many decades have passed and how many office equipment have been invented, an office copier remains to be one of the most important pieces of equipment in the workplace. Companies need a copier to reproduce hard copies of letters, handouts, and notices to employees. We use them too to mass produce documents for marketing purposes.

Now that copiers have evolved into multifunctional devices, these equipment have become more powerful devices through which we can print, fax, and scan all sorts of paper files.

How about in your office? Does your copier or multifunctional device do tons of printing, scanning, copying, and faxing jobs daily? How is the health of your device right now? What do you do to maintain its great working condition?

In this post, we’ll talk about the simple ways to take care of your office copier or multifunctional device so it can last for many years. By following these tips, you will not only extend the life of your copier but you will also improve its printing quality.

Pick the right copier

Our very first advice before we talk about taking care of your office copier is to make sure that you’ve got the right one.

First step to do this is to determine your printing needs in the office. How many copies on average do you make daily? If you have an existing copier, check the specifications to see the device’s printing capacity, ink or toner cartridge capacity, and paper-drawer capacity. This is necessary because if your printing need is way out of your copier’s capacity, then you need to get a new one with the required specifications.

Regularly clean your copier

Cleaning your copier may sound too simple and a no-brainer. But let me ask you, when was the last time you cleaned your office copier?

A copier cleaning routine is very important to ensure that no dust or dirt remains on the glass part of the copier and no foreign materials get stuck in the toner, cartridge, and paper reception areas. There is a special kind of vacuum designed to clean these copier parts. As for the glass area of your copier, you can use a microfibre towel to clean it. Wikihow explained in four simple steps how you should clean your copier.

Use quality products

As mentioned above, you have to pick the right cleaning materials for your copier. You can’t use an ordinary towel to clean the glass area because the texture of an ordinary towel is too rough for a glass surface.

Another tip is to use the right kind of paper for your copier. Don’t insert just any type of paper for printing or copying purposes. Refer to the manual of your device and it will tell you which types of paper are advisable to use.

Regularly turn it off

Give your copier some time to rest. If you know the working hours of your device, which is usually the same operating hours of your company, turn the device off when no one’s in.

In case your company operates 24/7, determine which time of the day the copier is used most often and turn it off on hours that it’s not frequently used. Better yet, create a printing schedule for your company and encourage your employees to do majority of their printing jobs within this time.  This will protect your copier from wearing out too quickly while you save up on printing cost.

Periodic maintenance

There are copier parts that you can clean on your own but there are maintenance methods that can only be done properly by copier pros. Some examples are toner cleaning, CCD or Charge Couple Device inspection, and internal copier maintenance. If you bought an expensive copier, you’d want it to last long and to make this happen, you have to invest on maintaining the device properly.

Better yet, go for a Singapore copier lease plan where you don’t need to purchase the device but pay a monthly fee to get the fitting equipment for your company needs. A copier lease plan usually comes with a free regular maintenance service so you won’t need to pay another service pro to do maintenance work on your device.