Old LaserJet 5 with paper jam

[Lobster]

I currently have an old LaserJet 5 printer - bought it off ebay for about £35 delivered a few months ago and have been delighted with it (not least of which because I can get original HP toner carts for it via the same route for a tenner - many thousands of sheets of paper later and I'm still on the first cart - what's not to like?!)

Unfortunately it's just developed a paper jam error and I'm wondering if any of the IT gurus here might be able to advise? It's gone straight from never jamming at all, to doing so 100% of the time: the paper is picked up OK but jams just before it enters the fuser assembly. I've asked a couple of commercial outfits locally but they tell me it's not worth the cost of them even looking at it, which nearly makes my hair bleed - I'm convinced the problem is going to be something really trivial to someone who knows what to look for, and I'm appalled at the thought of just skipping the printer, as advised.

I've been trawling the net for solutions; best site appears to be

which (I think) seems to be suggesting paper sensors; if that's the case I can't find them! (I can't relate the photos at to my own machine TBH).

Any ideas, anyone? Does the paper sensor thing make sense?

Thanks David

[Bob Eager]

I wonder if the fuser rollers are actually turning. It's easy enough to remove the fuser. You can check that the two drive gears (one on the fuser, one on the chassis) are not damaged. You can also turn the gear on the fuser and see if both rollers actually turn.

I may have some s/h parts...

To get the fuser out, open the rear flap. There are two vertical screws fixing the visible side of the fuser baseplate down into the chassis. Remove those and it slides out. The flap is best removed first; unhitch the plastic strap and take out the little plastic latch on the hinge, then slide the flap sideways to release the hinge pin.

[Toby]

cheaply off eBay too

220501582378 - £7.99 inc postage

Toby...

[Dave]

I had a 5L and as you say, it would print forever. I e mailed fixyourownprinter and got back a pretty amateurish CD that showed what to do, some paper 'guide' parts and a new pick up roller and ended up with the same problem you did. The paper was picked up perfectly, but fell about 6 mm short of the rollers to get it into the fusing roller. In the end I gave up. Later, I found that HP printers are notorious for paper pick up problems, with age. I was given an HP 2575 all in one about a year ago, with paper pick up problems. After cleaning the pick up roller, it still wouldn't pick up the paper reliably, so I fed it a sheet of 150 grit sandpaper and held on to it until it said paper feed error twice. This printer is now fine and still working more than 12 months later.

I have a suspicion that the diameter of the pick up roller was below the right diameter. But as I have now dumped the printer, I can't be certain.

Sorry I can't be of any help to you.

Dave

[JimK]

May I tap into this Laserjet 5 knowledge resource please?

My folks have a Laserjet 5P that will only print if fed single sheets one at a time through the "other media" (sic) flap. I.e. if it takes paper from the cassette underneath it will jam, but if fed manually single sheets all is well, if infuriating!

Any thoughts please?

thanks

JimK

[Lobster]

Excellent, Bob, thanks - far better info than I could glean from all my web-surfing! I duly popped out the fuser unit and sure enough, the central large plastic gear wheel is in bits. :-(

So, not so excellent in that it's rather more serious than I thought but at least I know what the problem is. All the reconditioned fuser units I can see online seem to be far more expensive than the printer; a pity as the fuser itself was absolutely fine. Can these gears be changed (if they can be sourced, that is?) The fuser unit looks very un-dismantleable to me...

David

[Bob Eager]

He said 5, not 5L...radically different I am afraid.

[Bob Eager]

Oh, it is dismantleable. I've replaced the lamp (inside the roller) on more than one occasion.

I actually have 4[M][+] machines - but the 5 is the development of that and very similar.

Gears are probably obtainable...or a s/h fuser with no guarantees would probably have an intact gear.

I know the 4 and 4+ have different fusers, but I'll check...I may have an old 4+ fuser with knackered roller...if the gear is the same, you're welcome.

[Bob Eager]

Can't remember the 5P offhand but will take a look. I suspect taht'll be the pickup roller. I've done that on the 4/4+/5 - a one minute job, and on the 5L - a half hour job!

[TheOldFellow]

Pretty sure that this won't help in your case, but I had lots of problems w= ith paper jams on printers that were solved by cleaning the picking rollers with double-sided adhesive tape stuck to a sheet of paper in line with the rollers.

The roller tyres gets impregnated with paper dust and it makes them slippy instead of grippy.

R.

[Bob Eager]

I think there are two gears...or is that on the other end?

Anyway, the 4+ and the 5 apparently use the same fuser (I just checked; I knew the 4 used a different one to the 4+).

I'll have a look tomorrow (it's in an unlighted shed and it's raining right now...)

[Bob Eager]

Of course, WHY is it in bits....the rollers may have jammed. As I recall, my faulty fuser has knackered rollers, so you should be ablew to make one good one out of the two.

[Lobster]

Well that would be *really* fab... :-)

Can't see how the fuser comes apart for the life of me: I can see a small screw at either end in small copper plates, beneath 'warranty void if removed' stickers, which looks promising, but nothing discernable seems to happen when I unscrew them! It all looks very prone to damage if bits are forced the wrong way.

Is it OK to touch the faces of the rollers or does that damage them? Can't get any purchase anywhere otherwise to try moving them, to check whether they are jammed...

Thanks David

[Lobster]

Mine has three gears at one end; two small ones attached to the chassis I think, with the large central one on the roller which can be seen broken here:

Thanks David

[Bob Eager]

That black plastic cover comes off. There are little slots and down inside those you move a plastic tab with a flat bladed screwdriver. The ones on the ends are relatively easy. There are slots along the long bit and there are *two* tabs inside each of those - one just inside, and one at the bottom of the slot, deep inside.

But leave that for now....if I find one and I send you all of it, I'll take the cover off first so you can see.

Never bothered about that myself - it's not like the transfer roller at the front of the machine. They're Teflon, I think.

Looks as if it's butchered the other gear a bit, too. I wonder if a tooth broke off and was ingested between the two gears.

[<me9]

My laserjet1100 (which I think is a descendrent of the LJ5) developed simiular problems. It was temporarily cured by a heath robinson freeby they issued, which stuck another paper feed separator pad (IIRC) over the old hardened one. This one didn't last long, and I replaced it with one made from a thin bicycle puncture repair patch. It has rarely misfed since.

It's worth bending the paper stack before inserting to reduce stiction between the sheets.

[geoff]

Exactly the same problem I had with my Epson C1000

It was cheaper to buy a new printer than the fuser unit (Can't afford downtime in the winter)

[CL]

My advice is stick with it and do the repair - these are excellent printers and a real workhorse.

In fact I currently have a Laserjet 4+ ( surplus ) advertised locally at £35 - I picked up 2 of LJ4+ and a LJ5 with 2 additional cut sheet bin feeders for free a few months ago. One I needed for my daughter who recently moved out. I gave one to a neighbour who does a lot of mono printing - and put the other for sale only today.

For years I have used a Laserjet 5 as my main printer. ( That's a 5 not a 5P or 4P - different beasts ). It has a duplex unit ( very worthwhile & difficult to find ) added, an additional cut sheet bin feeder and an HP Jetdirect card to put it on my network, plus an additional 16MB of memory. Big printouts use only half the paper, are half the thickness and weight, and cheap.

I recently bought an HP 92298X replacement toner cartridge for my main printer for £10 on eBay - that is expected to do about 10,000 ( yes thousand ) A4 page sides - you can't go wrong compared to an inkjet. I have an inkjet too for photo printing.

JetDirect network cards are available on eBay, usually cheaply for this model.

The 4+ printer I am selling has a page count of over 500,000 and performs perfectly.

I have an IT job history so am familiar with the printers from years ago, that's why I bought it.

Repair and keep it, don't think you'll regret it for mono printing.

They are the Volvo's of the printing world, they just keep going with the odd hiccup now and again. And, yes, I have a Volvo 240 too.

Somewhere, on one of my machines I have the repair manual and will send it to YOU personally when I come across it.

.

[Bob Eager]

Never seen it happen before on one of these old HPs, though. Built, as they say, like tanks.

[Bob Eager]

Service manual now temporarily online at: