h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello. I've been trying to fix a laser printer, because I seem to be less technophobic than anyone else around. It occurred to me to come here and say what it's doing wrong, and maybe something would jump right out at someone who knows more than I do.



1. The printer (Raven LP-1030, emulating Panasonic KX-P4440) was donated from overseas (I'm in Kenya), and when it arrived there was no toner cartridge, and there was toner all over everything inside. We cleaned it up as well as we could, and got a toner cartridge (I'm certain we got the correct one and installed it correctly).

2. Now it prints, but certain parts of the page (vertical stripes) don't get printed on.

3. The toner is definitely installed properly. The roller on the back of the "developer unit" that transfers toner to the drum gets well coated, when its rolled. Occasionally there's one thin stripe that shows up not coated, but not always, and only in a tiny area, not corresponding to the parts of the page that don't print.

4. The drum *might* be fine. It *looks* clean and of uniform colour. A message keeps flashing on the little screen: "Drum Count 12K". No one seems to know what this means. My hunch is that it means the drum is old.

5. When you lift up the little cleaning strip so you can see a bit of the fuser roller, it looks moist. Damp. Mostly on the side of the page where the problems are, but not in *exactly* the right spots. Oh, and the cleaning strip (new) seems to be getting soiled evenly along its length.

6. We did a test page of horizontal lines, etc. Most of the page is fine. We ran the test page 10 times, and there was basically no difference between number 1 and number 10.

7. The manual's in Canada.



Well, that's my message in a bottle. If it comes back, great, if not, that's fine too. There's a technician who's supposed to come out and look at it soon, but he hasn't so far given the impression of competence.

hmmm....

Not quite sure if I can help as I am unfamiliar with the printer in question, but I'll give some things you can try. These may or may not work. I'll tackle them by point.

1. That was a good thing to clean the toner out. However, if the voids (the strips that are blank) are in a consistent spot, you may have missed something by the area where the beam enters the toner cartridge/developer assembly. It also sounds silly, but the toner cartridge may be low.

3. This is totally normal for the transfer roller. Try not to touch the roller with care hands, however, as the oils that the skin produce interferes with the proper operation of the roller. I usually wear cheap latex gloves (non sterile examination gloves are great for this)

4. Your intuition is most likely correct. I am assuming that the toner and developer are separate assemblies. This could also be the cause of the problem.

5. This is tricky. Power off the printer, wait for the roller to cool down, and touch it with your fingers, and rotate the drum. it should feel smooth, like a nonstick cooking pan, and have no bumps. it may have toner stuck to it. You can try to clean it off, but it's not recommended, as that starts to involve major surgery on the printer.

6. If wasting toner is not a big deal, you could try a totally black page. That would show where the problems are.

Other things:

If the toner is not sticking to the paper (i.e. it come off the paper after it leaves the printer), this indicates a fuser issue.

Hope this helps!