I am very, very stupid...

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.

Nice story. I recently bought a replacement drum for my colour laser printer (yet to be installed*) It arrived with a MASSIVE warning about do NOT expose to (any kind of) light for more than 15 seconds. In a major way, that's why it's (yet to be installed*). :/

The consensus seems to be that brief exposure to artificial light does no harm, and they can recover from damage by low level exposure (certainly true of mine it's been pulled out lots of times) but direct sunlight is what does the real damage, as I have found out. But with dire warnings like that I guess you'll be doing it in the dark...

The trouble with being technically inclined, I have discovered, is that not only do you have the ability to repair things most people would throw away, you also have the ability to break things in ways other people would just never think of.

What I could really do with is to find a matching drum from an old cartridge (that hasn't been in the light) and use that to replace this drum. Anybody got one? (reason being the replacement cartridge cost in the region of £100 (or about £50 for a "compatible" one) and I ain't got no money!)

throbscottle said:

...
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.
...

Click to expand...

What's the problem? You can still use it to make PCBs, they just have to be very skinny PCBs...

Of course I am a genius really...

OK, so what happened next...

Since I'd damaged the cartridge in the process of trying to get it open - bent electrode, broken off plastic lug - I took it out to the shed to try and fix the damage so I would know if I could get away with just getting an opc drum or if a whole new cartridge was needed.

I undid a plastic clip, pulled out a shaft, removed the roller, and toner came out! I then removed the part I took out the first time and emptied the cartridge into the dustbin, gave everything a good clean. Straightened the bent electrode, replaced the broken off lug with a screw (well, first a modified blind rivet but that didn't go too well). Put the drum back, stuck it in the printer.

In the process of doing this I found a little sprung trapdoor that looks like if you hold it open the toner will come out. **sigh**.

Now, bear in mind I thought the drum had well and truly had it, so it had been roughly handled, coating torn at the end, generally tossed around, exposed to light, (albeit through glass windows). I just wanted to check there was no arcing inside the printer and that the rotating parts rotated ok.

Tried printing a config page.

No black bars, no spots, no evidence of anything wrong apart from a couple of shadowy lines down the length of the page!

So flabbergasted I had to sit down. Had a celebratory biscuit. Tried printing board layout on back of config page. Worked ok, shadowy lines nearly gone.

Cranked the quality right up, tried putting a bit of photo paper in. Printer picked it up straight away (so first fault was fixed, yay!) Came out with a couple indented lines down it, but otherwise fine.

All that just to print this: (attached)

Hi throbscottle

I found the answer to your printer problem

Never, ever use a squashed caterpillar as Artwork That little IC with it's legs and pads looks exactly like one . No offence. I just could not help chirping

Regards,
tvtech

"The trouble with being technically inclined, I have discovered, is that not only do you have the ability to repair things most people would throw away, you also have the ability to break things in ways other people would just never think of."

Right on, I'm a genius at both! E

tvtech said:

Hi throbscottle

I found the answer to your printer problem

Never, ever use a squashed caterpillar as Artwork That little IC with it's legs and pads looks exactly like one . No offence. I just could not help chirping

Regards,
tvtech

Click to expand...

Right, so in future, I DON'T use wildlife in the printer? Damn, who would have thought it was so simple?

Actually my squashed caterpillar is an adapter so I can plug a 16 pin SOIC (74hc123) into a breadboard Just etched it. Transfer didn't go too well so it needs some finishing with the mini-drill and an engraving bit.

throbscottle said:

Right, so in future, I DON'T use wildlife in the printer? Damn, who would have thought it was so simple?

Actually my squashed caterpillar is an adapter so I can plug a 16 pin SOIC (74hc123) into a breadboard Just etched it. Transfer didn't go too well so it needs some finishing with the mini-drill and an engraving bit.

Click to expand...

Good man. You have a sense of humour as well.

Stay well buddy

All the best,
tvtech

Congrats on getting a solution! It sounded hopeless for a while.

Just wondering about that toner you emptied into the bin. Would it have been possible to put it back into the toner hopper in the cartridge to re-use it? Or does mixing of the colours in stray toner make that impractical (except if the printer is dedicated to pcb production, where colour is irrelevant)?

I used to work as a copier repair tech some years ago and the toner that goes in the used toner collection box is dead and contaminated toner.

That is it did not work the first time through the machine so the odds are it won't work a second time plus whatever odd little bits of dust paper lint and whatever else are not things you want to be running across your printing drum..

Believe me I saw enough cheap asses try it and no one ever gained anything in the end other than a few extra printed pages at the expense of what was usually a rather expensive printer drum.

Never mind powder Copiers...

I worked for Nashua South Africa in the LIQUID Toner days. Talking around 1983-1985. No such thing as a little Vacuum cleaner to service a Copier.
All was liquid. Servicing the copier was akin to servicing a car in your lounge.....except, not your lounge.

The Black Ink stained permanently if you happened to be careless whilst carrying the tray outside to clean with developer.

Those were the days that Ink was used for photocopying. And absolutely permanent on documents. Unlike now, where all is the powder way...

Simple test: Take a recently photocopied A4 document and put it in an A4 plastic sleeve. Put a little book on top of it..... and leave for a Year. Come back after a Year and see if you can pull it out....chances are, you will be able to. Except, the important stuff will be stuck to the the plastic sleeve and not the Document itself.

Ink sank into paper. Powder cannot. No matter how much you try and dry. Pet peeve of mine....

When Powder was on the way in, I bailed out. Messy machines like the 1205...were still ink. And good.

Regards,
tvtech





Regards,
tvtech

Well, I'd hardly call it a solution, it just worked for reasons unknown.

I'd seen on one of the printer forums the idea of putting used toner back in, whoever suggested it there was told not to! Anyway, the printer is used as our main printer now so it does normal printing too.

TV, fascinating post. Perhaps you can answer a question for me. When I was at school, late 70's early 80's, my biology teacher would give us handouts which were purple/violet in colour. Looked like ink, except it was copies. Have you any idea what she was using for these?

Cheeers, all

Oh, by way of a PS - the little board turned out to be the worst I've ever made - but there again the last time I made any was dry transfers in the 80's. How things have changed. The iron-on transfer didn't go too well, but I thought I didn't want to waste more paper so chucked it in the FeCl3 anyway, touched it up with the mini-drill. Bleh. Works, anyway. Very educational experience.

throbscottle said:

purple/violet in colour. Looked like ink, except it was copies.

Click to expand...

I think I can answer that one for you. I had the same deal. We were told not to smell them because they used 'Methylated spirit'. I had heard it called 'the Banda machine'. Not seen one (or indeed thought of one) in years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator

throbscottle said:

The trouble with being technically inclined, I have discovered, is that not only do you have the ability to repair things most people would throw away, you also have the ability to break things in ways other people would just never think of.

Click to expand...

I am afraid I will be quoting you often (free of charge) in the future. Quite an original point of view!!

House0Fwax said:

I think I can answer that one for you. I had the same deal. We were told not to smell them because they used 'Methylated spirit'. I had heard it called 'the Banda machine'. Not seen one (or indeed thought of one) in years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator

Click to expand...

Yep, that would be the one. Fascinating link, thanks

Ink sank into paper. Powder cannot. No matter how much you try and dry. Pet peeve of mine....

Click to expand...

When I worked on copiers and commercial printers they all used a fuser section that literally melted the toner into the paper at around 150 - 200 C. That's why your printed paper comes out hot.

As far so I know that is still the standard tech for how power based toner systems work on all printers and copiers.

throbscottle said:

TV, fascinating post. Perhaps you can answer a question for me. When I was at school, late 70's early 80's, my biology teacher would give us handouts which were purple/violet in colour. Looked like ink, except it was copies. Have you any idea what she was using for these?

Cheeers, all

Click to expand...

Hi throbscottle

I entered the copier game at a really difficult time here in SA. In between new Technology and all. From what I remember of my first day on the job was being shown something similar to your chirp about your teacher and that funny looking copy.

Well, Ricoh started to enter the Market here with Nashua. Liquid toner copiers that rocked. We were taught basically how to disassemble these machines and put them back together in the field with no mess. It was bloody hard work and we always wore gloves so that our hands did not mark customers stuff after we were finished. They were black and white copiers only......

The satisfaction for me though after being told to service customers machine's was always worth it after comparing the before and after copies...

Everything was serviced, cleaned and handled with the correct tools. From the pickup of the paper to the final copy.

Always made me so proud that the Registration was bang on every time if you did a good job. Call the Customer. Show them the before and after service copies. Look at their face...say nothing... See the smile. Worth it every time.

And, you know what guys.....I still use only Ink to this day. Sure, I have been out of the Copier game for yonks. But at the same time, only Inkjet printers for my copies. Do not bring a Laser or any other powder machine near me. Inkjets are very expensive to print with.....but they are bang on accurate and the copies last forever.

Many here will disagree.....until that very important piece of paper printed with a powder machine decides to become part of whatever is above it.

Especially if it is a plastic sleeve.

Regards,
tvtech