Brother MFC-8840D: ink bleeding all over the edge, please help!

nayeem

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For my Brother MFC-8840D, All printed pages have a lot of black ink bled all over the entire left hand edge of the paper. Tried new OEM cartridges but it did not fix the problem. It does not matter whether I am making a photocopy, receiving a fax, or printing a document from my computer, it always bleeds about an inch of ink all the way down the left edge of the paper.

I have never replaced the drum unit and do not know what it does. Do I need a new drum unit that holds the ink cartridge? Or is it something else? I can email a picture of the paper if needed. Thank you so much!
 

nayeem

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No response?! Someone please help I'm in trouble with this ink!
 

ross_diadame

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I too have this problem. i noticed with my brother dcp-7040 that the left side of the drum is lighter than the right side. this is the original drum which has only reached 28K+ prints. i tried to clean it with cotton but it gets worse. Please help.
 

TheTonerGuy

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Hi Nayeem and ross,

The problems you are experiencing are quite different.

Nayeem's Problem
First or all, toners do not bleed. If you are getting a one inch band all the way down the page, you need to check 2 things.

1) Look in your manual to see if your printer has an excess toner compartment. If it does, it may be getting full and overflowing. I have never seen this on Brother printers. Therefore, if your manual does not mention an excess toner compartment, you have nothing to worry about.

2) Look to see if the band of black toner is visible on your drum. If it is, then perhaps your drum is not discharging properly or the cleaning blades are leaving a one inch band.

Frankly, the Toner Cartridge could never leave a band. Therefore, buying a new cartridge will not help. In my opinion, if you have 2 of these printers you can swap the drum unit to see if that is the problem. If you cannot do that, then you may not have a choice to buy a new drum unit. The Machine you are using is old technology. Therefore, if you have never changed the drum, it is highly likely that it needs to be changed.

Be careful when shopping for Brother drum units. Some of the imported aftermarket products are simply unreliable. Buy either the OEM or from a supplier with good warranty policies.

Lastly, it can be the laser that is no longer scanning the last inch of your paper. This means you will need to get your printer serviced.

You also asked what a Drum unit does. Here is a quick summary of how laser printing works.
1) The drum unit is a photo-conductor. It can be charged like an insulator but will discharge when laser light shines on it.
2) The drum is charged to a high voltage.
3) The laser shines on the drum causing a discharge everywhere except where you want the toner to stick. The laser creates an electrostatic image. This is why drums are often called "Imaging Drums".
4) The cartridge provides an evenly distributed thin layer of Toner to the drum. This caused the image to be sort of developed. You can now see the image because it is formed with toner on the drum. This is why the roller on the cartridge is commonly called a "Developer Roller"
5) The developed Toner Image is now transferred to the paper. However, it is simply deposited there and will simply blow right off if not fused.
6) The paper passes through a fuser unit. This is basically a heating unit that will cause the toner to melt into the paper, thus fusing the image.
7) Wiper blades and cleaning lights then do their job of removing the excess toner from the drum.
and the process repeats.

This is why I know that your problem can only be caused by either a laser that is not doing it's job, excess toner that has no place to go or a drum that no longer can be cleaned on one side due to blades (mechanical) or non-discharging (electrical)

Ross's Problem:

This is a different issue. Your drum is most probably the cause of your issue. I believe that the drum unit for the DCP-7040 is not rated for 28K prints. In fact, it would mean that you got about 10-12 cartridges worth of use out of that drum. That is in my opinion very impressive.

You need to change your drum. Using any kind of solvent or physical pressure (cotton ball) will make it worse.

As I explained above, the drum is a photo-conductor. Basically it is a aluminum cylinder coated with an insulator that becomes conductive with the presence of a particular frequency of laser light. If the coating is too thick the laser will not be able to penetrate all the way down to the aluminum core. Therefore, the charge will not discharge and you will get solid black prints. If the coating is too thin then even the slightest amount of laser light will cause total discharge. This will produce very faint images or worse, no image at all (White prints).

The balance to achieve perfect printing is to get a uniform coating at is typically only a few microns think. Think of it as a hair thick coating of photo conductor material.

In your case, it seams that the coating is beginning to wear out on one side. This explains the fading on one side that you are experiencing.

TheTonerGuy
 

The Hat

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TheTonerGuy
I was very impressed with your response to nayeem and rosss problems really.
You explained it in great detail and never once tried to sell or push anything on them,
even dough you had a great opportunity to do so this time.
I have a Brother HL 1240 laser for over ten years or so and it nevers gives trouble.
Its nice to see that you play it honest and fair, good on you Andrea..:thumbsup
 

TheTonerGuy

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The Hat.

Thank you very much sir. Your comments are most appreciated.

:)

Andrea
(TheTonerGuy)
 

TheTonerGuy

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Nayeem,

I think I may have the solution to your problem.

In my earlier reply I said, "Lastly, it can be the laser that is no longer scanning the last inch of your paper."

One of my customers had the same issue this morning. I told him the same thing that I told you in the reply I provided and my customer discovered what was interfering with the laser.

On the drum units, you will notice that there is a little bar that you are supposed to swing back and forth a few times in order to clean the corona wire. If for any reason that bar is not returned to its proper location, it will interfere with the proper functioning of the laser because it will block the light from touching the drum and thus not discharging and thus making a black band down the page.

I am almost 100% convinced that this is your problem as well. This is because the other senarios are highly unlikely whereas not returning the corona cleaning bar to the right location is quite common.

Please let me know if this works for you.

TheTonerGuy
 

hceuterpe

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Did you do the little shake-n-bake routine AFTER you yanked out the toner strips and BEFORE you put it in?
TonerGuy is right though, you may need a new drum, those are considered a consumable in most laser printers.

Never ever ever put any sort of liquid in a laser printer thinking it'll clean it, unless you want to buy a new one.
 

SticksN'Stones

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This post was a long time ago...but, I just had a similar problem for the first time ever. In my infinite wisdom...I forgot to left align the green tab on the new toner/drum units, after a toner replacement. It creates the same band of black, when you are this daft. So, 'daftness' can also be the problem; I've discovered. :D
 

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