O' Brother Where Art Thou..

[The Hat]

My old Brother printer ran out of toner last month, so I ordered and received a new OEM toner cartridge but my first prints had a 2” Halftone strip (Not solid) down the page, Ops.

I found this rather strange because it had been working perfectly till it ran out of toner and the drum had only approx 10,000 sheets through it.

But I taught what the heck and decided to get a new drum, when that arrived I installed it and expected the printer to be back to its usual normal, 100% perfect.

Surprise surprise it wasn’t and the pesky strip was still there, and the only thing I could do was to contact the ink suppliers and they said they would pick it up from me and return it to Brother themselves for examination, no expensive spared.

I heard back from the ink suppliers today and not from Brother themselves which I taught was strange, that was till I got the bad news.

Brother said “They couldn’t find anything wrong with their toner, so it must be your printer that’s at fault”; they also asked if I WANTED THE TONER CARTRIDGE BACK ! !

You could imagine what I said when I heard this, it is unrepeatable on here believe me, I know Canon are rubbish to deal with but now Brother have joined this elite printer service club.

I expected to at least get a replacement cartridge to test in the printer myself but to not even get a response from them directly is in itself damming, they really got some customers service.

So I am now down the cost of a toner cart and drum which are useless to me, and I’ll have to shop for a new printer, and who said print heads are expensive...

Does any think I’ll be buying another Brother laser printer ?

 

[Łukasz]

I don't want to be hit with empty toner cartridge , but white stripe down the page (paper feeding direction) may be because of some contamination in laser unit (or just on laser path).

By general approach, this is repairable by cleaning mirrors and other optics.

Some handbook:
HL-1030_HL-1240_HL-1250_HL-1270N_Parts_and_Service_Manual.pdf
Take a look at page 120:

3.3 Cleaning the Scanner Window
When replacing the drum unit or toner cartridge with a new one, be sure to clean the scanner
window.
1) Turn off the power switch and unplug the power cord.
2) Remove the drum unit from the printer.
3) Gently wipe the scanner window (colored magenta in the figures below) with a soft dry
cloth.

And page 153 is also interesting

User Check
(1) Try to wipe the scanner window with a soft cloth.
(2) The toner cartridge may be damaged. Install a new toner cartridge.
(3) Check the printer’s environment. High temperature and high humidity conditions
can cause this problem.
(4) Damp (wet) paper might be used. Try to change to freshly unpacked paper.

Interior of LSU can be cleaned, but it is not recommended for first time repair. There is a risk of making scratches on mirrors and lenses.

Ł.

 

[The Hat]

I want to thank you for the Service Manual it came in very handy to me.

All dough none of you suggestions were correct, I did manage to find a page relating to the problem I was having exactly, but more importantly was to see what Brother recommended for the solution, Install a new Toner Cartridge !

I then decide to exercise my right and demanded a new cartridge from Brother, which they relented after seeing the error of their ways and dispatched a new one to me right away !

So now my Auld 14 year old printer should be back in business shortly for another couple of years, and if it plays up next time I’ll just bin it..
Thanks…

YES

 

[CakeHole]

Stupid and maybe obvious of me but.......

I dont know how Brother laser printers work or if you could do this, but what happens if you put the old toner cart back in?

Im assuming of course the printer will still allow you to print with it (IE theres no chip or other security which just stops it printing when its ran out/low) did/do you get this halftone strip down the page when you put the old toner back in? If not then obviously it is the new toner at fault.

 

[The Hat]

Nope the old toner cart just stopped printing; obviously it was out of toner.

The halftone strip only occurred with the new toner cart, and not with the old one and I don’t have the old cartridge anymore, I sent it back to them for recycling.

This printer has only done 20 odd thousand and is chip free..

 

[CakeHole]

Ah right, is there no way you know of to bypass it for potential future issues? I remember the good old days of laser printers where the text started to come out faded and you would take the toner cart out give it a shake and put it back in to get every last page you could out of it. That was what i was basing my suggestion on.

I suppose (and what i was not sure on) that nowadays they have level monitoring much like ink carts, and once it thinks it is empty it wont let you use it further, a shame as otherwise you could of easily checked though obviously a bit hard now knowing you have sent it back for recycling

Oh well heres hoping the new one works and the problem is gone one way or another

 

[Łukasz]

20000 prints?! - on my local market this printer would be described as "never used, taken from display window"

I have got HP LJ 4000 and it is about 420000 (or even more) printouts, and with refilled toner cartridge it prints better than brand new Brother HL-1112E.

Ł.

 

[The Hat]

Yes my little Brother has printed very few in comparisons and it costs 5 times cheaper too, so horses for courses I reckon..

 

[palombian]

> I remember the good old days of laser printers where the text started to come out faded and you would take the toner cart out give it a shake and put it back in to get every last page you could out of it.<

Oh, it doesn't work anymore like that ?
Glad I quit laser printers.
But I printed 10 years with the basic HP Laserjet 1100, "only" 70.000 pages.

 

[CakeHole]

> I remember the good old days of laser printers where the text started to come out faded and you would take the toner cart out give it a shake and put it back in to get every last page you could out of it.<

Oh, it doesn't work anymore like that ?
Glad I quit laser printers.
But I printed 10 years with the basic HP Laserjet 1100, "only" 70.000 pages.

Probably similar to inkjets and varies model to model, some having chips or other means to measure the amount of toner left. My suggestion was more a vain hope at an obvious solution @The Hat may have forgot, would be unusual for him not to try the obvious first though as he later confirmed.

Would be interesting in knowing more on how various Laser printers know when toner is empty though, i imagine they have various ways of measuring toner content.