throbscottle
Well-Known Member
A few months ago someone was giving away a laser printer on Freecycle, which I joyfully, ecstatically, took home because I wanted to be able to eventually do toner transfer of pcb designs. As it happened it is a fairly good colour laser printer. They said it had a lot of paper jams and a warning that the drum cartridge was full, but otherwise worked.
Well, there's been very few paper jams, and I found you can reset the counter on the drum cartridge, so all was good.
I finally got around to attempting my first toner transfer a couple of days ago. Put in some fairly ancient cheap nasty inkjet glossy photo paper, printer picked it up after about 5 attempts, printed the design, I transferred. Fairly good for a first attempt, misaligned slightly had a couple of imperfections, so I thought I'd try again with registration marks this time, and cleaned it off.
Put second sheet in printer. Wouldn't pick it up. Every failure to pick up the paper it decides is a media jam, so I have to open the lid slightly and reposition the paper slightly. It then spends about 5 minutes calibrating before attempting again.
Round about the tenth attempt I thought I'd clean the pickup roller and associated bits. Noticed there was quite a lot of toner lying around inside. "Oh", I thought to myself, "the drum cartridge really is full and it's leaking, I read on a forum when finding out how to reset the counter that you can empty it, so I'll try to do that"
The drum cartridge has a thing on it that looks like a sort of trapdoor, so naturally I prised this open. Didn't get any toner out, it just carries a holey grid type electrode. Took it outside and gave it a shake into the bin anyway in case any did come out. Put it back together. Put cartridge back in printer.
Turned it on, strange hissing sound. I'd removed the covers to get at the pickup roller, which meant when I looked for the source of the sound I could actually see the fat violet spark, half inch long, causing the hissing sound. Turned off, pulled drum cartridge, cleaned contacts, put it back in. That stopped that problem.
Test print. Well, it used to do a nice test print. Now I got a page of black with speckles. Cleaned loose toner off laser unit. Then got test print with fat black bars across it instead.
So, that's what happens when you expose a laser printer drum to bright sunlight. Oh bugger...
I am a complete and utter idiot.
Well, there's been very few paper jams, and I found you can reset the counter on the drum cartridge, so all was good.
I finally got around to attempting my first toner transfer a couple of days ago. Put in some fairly ancient cheap nasty inkjet glossy photo paper, printer picked it up after about 5 attempts, printed the design, I transferred. Fairly good for a first attempt, misaligned slightly had a couple of imperfections, so I thought I'd try again with registration marks this time, and cleaned it off.
Put second sheet in printer. Wouldn't pick it up. Every failure to pick up the paper it decides is a media jam, so I have to open the lid slightly and reposition the paper slightly. It then spends about 5 minutes calibrating before attempting again.
Round about the tenth attempt I thought I'd clean the pickup roller and associated bits. Noticed there was quite a lot of toner lying around inside. "Oh", I thought to myself, "the drum cartridge really is full and it's leaking, I read on a forum when finding out how to reset the counter that you can empty it, so I'll try to do that"
The drum cartridge has a thing on it that looks like a sort of trapdoor, so naturally I prised this open. Didn't get any toner out, it just carries a holey grid type electrode. Took it outside and gave it a shake into the bin anyway in case any did come out. Put it back together. Put cartridge back in printer.
Turned it on, strange hissing sound. I'd removed the covers to get at the pickup roller, which meant when I looked for the source of the sound I could actually see the fat violet spark, half inch long, causing the hissing sound. Turned off, pulled drum cartridge, cleaned contacts, put it back in. That stopped that problem.
Test print. Well, it used to do a nice test print. Now I got a page of black with speckles. Cleaned loose toner off laser unit. Then got test print with fat black bars across it instead.
So, that's what happens when you expose a laser printer drum to bright sunlight. Oh bugger...
I am a complete and utter idiot.