Laser printer eating toner

I've got a Xerox 6110N colour laser printer, all of a sudden it's started to eat cyan toner - even if there is no cyan in the pages. Looking at the mechanism there is a lot of cyan toner about, and the waste tank is full of it - it's clearly just not regulating it properly.

At the same time its suddenly started making a loud clack-clack noise when printing, as if it's trying to shake something.

Has anyone any experience of these kind of things. The cost of a replacement Imaging Unit is far more than a new printer. (And I know they have a bad reputation thanks, too late)

I'm tempted to start taking the 'no user serviceable parts' Imaging Unit apart just to see if I can fix it.

Then the next question, can anyone recommend a Networked Colour Laser Printer?

R.

Reply to
TheOldFellow
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HP Color LaserJet CP1515n. Had this a couple of months now, it's really good.

Reply to
David Paste

Quite happy with mine as well, beat me to it saying so. B-) Doesn't do much colour work but all that it has done I've been happy with.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I honestly thought that for pictures it would be a bit ropy, but it has surprised me how good pictures can be on a colour laser. I'd given up on inkjets years ago due to several reasons and was using a mono Samsung laser, with commercial photo printing for err, photo's. It was good for text, but images (other than being greyscale, of course) were distinctly 'newspaperish'. The 1515 is much better than I hoped for, and even it's black text output is noticeably better (crisper, especially at smaller type sizes) than the old Samsung ML-1610.

Reply to
David Paste

I'd still use one of the online photo print services for anything "important" but for normal everyday use (kids homework, snapshots etc) it does very credible job. The 1515's predecesors where an HP LJ1200 (black text out of both very similar) and Epson Sylus Photo Color 890. Excellent photo prints on glossy papper when you finally managed to kick it into working properly, not enough use so the jets were always blocked. Cleaning cycles consume so much ink I'd probably only get a dozen, if that, 4x6 prints from a cartridge.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

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one about 2 months ago. Brand new sealed Dell unit, works beautifully.

Reply to
Steve Walker

Toner looks frightfully expensive though. R.

Reply to
TheOldFellow

I can recommend that printer for low volume use but think it's worth repeating previous warnings about that supplier. They are unrepentant email, phone and fax spammers with a generally dubious reputation. I'd guess that their interpretation of 'free' printer, as advertised, means no warranty or rather they'll happily refund the cost of the printer in case of complaint, ie zero.

If you must deal with these people then use a disposable email address, it will be spammed and they will not stop, do not give them a real phone number and do not give them a mobile or fax number at all.

Going rate for the Dell 1320CN is £128 inc vat. I got mine from CPC who I know can be relied on to sort me out in case of problems and I am happy to use consumables from

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who sell a full set of compatible carts for 62quid. No affiliation to either.

Reply to
fred

Well, I suppose 'frightfully' is subjective. I worked out that B&W text is about 3ppp and colour pictures are maybe 8ppp or thereabouts. I can live with that cost. Incidentally, it worked out cheaper per page than the last two Epson colour inkjet machines I had. They were woeful.

Reply to
David Paste

Yup, same here. I found ultimately that the paper used by the commercial companies has the edge in quality than even the old inkjets on good glossy paper. I could always tell. And now, the oldest pints I did with the inkjets, are starting to fade - and they haven't been subjected to anything particularly harsh, either. As I understand it, the commercial 'proper' prints are known to last MUCH longer.

hen you finally

Exactly my experience with mine. It was also an Epson.

Before choosing the 1515, I had a look at several colour lasers and inkjets. One thing I managed to do was check review sites, and although the Canon Pixsomething-or-other was known to be the best inkjet printer in terms of image quality, it drank ink like nothing else. Turns out it did a cleaning cycle for each print run. Suppose it helps stop clogging, but in turn made the print cost per page pretty painful.

Reply to
David Paste

Not much change from =A3200 for a complete set of 4 CYMB cartridges but then if life of the black is anything like the life of toner in the pervious LJ1200 it'll only need a black cartridge every other year. The vast majority of our printing is black, the "default printer" driver is setup as monochrome.

Toner always looks expensive but when you do the cost/page it is almost invariably a lot cheaper than inkjet.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Not an option for me, no Linux drivers available.

R.

Reply to
TheOldFellow

Well, I may not be buying a new one after all. Examination of the insides (I got a pdf maintenance manual from the t'internet for nowt) leads me to the conclusion that the last cyan toner cartridge must have been faulty (yes, it was a re-manufactured one) and this led to clogging of the mechanism. The next cartridge that I used then got wedged open by the clog and damaged, so it is appeared U/S too.

I've cleared the clog (workshop vac with a fine nozzle, plus fine stick to break it up), and the cartridge now seats well. I'll give it one more try before the big Heave-Ho!

One thing is sure, I am not going back to Ink Jets.

R.

Reply to
TheOldFellow

careful, unless you have a very fine filter (like a proper tonervac) you might find you're distributing cyan dust into the air to have it settle on all surfaces ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

cf. Toner always looks expensive but when you realise how little it costs to make you think now that really is f'ckn expensive ;-)

Reply to
fred

Ah, if sir had only outlined his full requirements at the outset :-)

Sorry you didn't get any help on the repair angle.

Reply to
fred

32bit OS?
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Reply to
Mark.

While IJT presumably have obligation under sales of goods act (although being offshore I can't be sure) the warranty regardless of whether you purchase it from IJT or CPC is with Dell. Key in the serial number and you see how many days there are left ( it's next day at home servicing iirc) Pity that their clock starts running when the device is sent from Dell to the seller so you loose a couple of weeks.

Mine eats toner at a far higher rate than advertised. 1000 - 1200 sheets per black toner is about what I'm getting, the 2000 pages is at

5% coverage, I doubt mine is much more as the vast majority are plain text or line drawings with no big areas of infill.

There are many places with cheaper Dell 1320 toner than

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I've had 4 toners for less than 30 quid, and black ones for under a fiver. I've tried loads of suppliers over the past year, even genuine "50 quid" Dell ones and there doesn't appear to be any difference in quality or yield.

Compared to my old HP laser from the mid 1990's it's faster and clearer and also in colour. In terms of build quality it's light years behind. I can't see it lasting more than 2 or 3 years. My HP was on something like 150000+ pages last I looked. All it's needed over the years besides toner is a fuser unit costing about 30 quid when I inadvertently fed in some incompatible clear film

Despite all my reservations I'd still recommend the Dell 1320 as it's way better than any inkjet and when want very high quality colour prints I'll get them professionally done. The single sheet feeder remains a stinking pile of crap if you use anything but perfectly smooth paper.

Reply to
The Other Mike

I did it outside :) R.

Reply to
TheOldFellow

In message , fred writes

Can't say I've had a problem with that myself.

AIUI It has the normal Dell warranty.

But CPC aren't including the extra toner. From IJT/Cartex (or Morgan's if you prefer a UK co rather than a Jersey one for about £10 more, though all owned by the same co now) you get the printer + 2 full sets of toner. Though I think it doesn't include the 'starter' toner you normally get which is rated at 1000 pages instead of 2000. so you are getting 1 1/2 sets of toner free I guess.

Reply to
chris French

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