Epson NPL-N3000 - Printing Smudges.

[sferg410]

Hello, new to this forum, would be great if I could get some help as I know nothing about laser printers.

I was recently given this Epson N3000 mono laser printer, even has the duplexer, however there is a printing problem.

The cartridge has only printed a couple of thousand pages, however on every print I get 3 thin equally spaced smudges, across the paper. They are fairly faint, starts about 4cm from left margin and ends about 8cm from right margin. Smudge itself is about 12cm long, couple of mm across, fairly faint, a kind of dotty smudge not solid.

A guess would be that the paper is passing a roller or something 3 times in a single print and there is a point on that roller that is always dirty so I always get the same 3 smudge lines all the time.

Any ideas what it could be? What might need cleaning? That kind of thing.

Thanks
Stewart

 

[PeterBJ]

Here is a service manual for your printer: http://www.incos.it/download/EPSON/STAMPANTI/LASER/EPL-N3000_AL-M4000N_manual.pdf

Here is a thread about a problem similar to yours: http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/hp-laserjet-fuser-replacement-or-something-else.9348/ and specially notice this post by @Łukasz : http://www.printerknowledge.com/thr...ment-or-something-else.9348/page-2#post-74804

 

[sferg410]

Thanks for the response, I have looked through the service manual before and not having any laser printer experience, nothing in it identifies the problem to me, also I don't think the other thread helps much as it is a totally different printing problem.

 

[PeterBJ]

Neither am I a laser printer expert, but measuring the distance between smudges and dividing by pi would give the diameter of the offending roller or drum.

See page 144 in the service manual for a table to help identify the source of the smudges.

 

[sferg410]

OK, so the gap is 9cm.
9 divided by pi is 2.86
So what does that mean?

 

[sferg410]

And I checked the info from page 144 onwards but none of the problems listed seem to match my issue.

 

[sferg410]

I just took a look at the ink cartridge and could see a small area of the drum which is blue in colour, i rotated it to see it all and i am pretty sure i could see at one point a line across just like the smudge appears in my photo.. it was pretty hard to see so not 100% sure and looked like it was behind the surface of the drum.
Could I be right with this and could this be the problem?
If so, anyway to remove the mark from the drum?

 

[The Hat]

You could try cleaning the drum with alcohol and a paper towel and if you can’t remove the scratches then you’re going to need a new drum unit I am afraid..

 

[sferg410]

Thanks, have been researching and sounded like i would need a new cartridge which is not an option as cant afford £200 for one and this one has hardly done any printing!! Why cant you just buy the drum??? It is easily removable!!
So by alcohol, do you mean vodka or some kind of neat stuff, how about meths?

 

[fotofreek]

google your problem, specifying the make and model of the printer. On my HP mono laser printer I've used a "cleaning" page that is described in the documentation when there is a repetitive artifact on the prints. The problem, however, has not been smudges. It is repeating lines or text. Much different from what you've described. I've always read a warning that you don't touch the drum or attempt to clean it directly, but The Hat may have had good results with the alcohol cleaning he mentioned. If you can't find a reference to a cleaning page you've got nothing to lose!

Smudges sounds to me more like toner that hasn't fused to the paper. If you can rub your finger across the smudge area and toner spreads from the smudge to an adjacent area, or if some of it rubs off on your finger, you may have a fuser problem or there is loose toner in the printer - sometimes caused by a poorly refilled cartridge.

As to the ability to remove the drum, I know that some laser cartridges can be refilled and parts replaced. I haven't tried it, and it appears that it is pretty tricky dealing with the toner.

Unless you know the real history of the printer, replacing the cartridge bears some risk as there also may be problems in the printer that need repair or replacement.

Check the following link: http://www.epson.co.uk/gb/en/viewco...nits/faq/903/1129?topcountriesbutton=1&pcc=GB