I recently picked up a little HP Laserjet 5L from Freecycle and whilst it did actually print the printout was about as dirty as the printer itself (inside more than out).
Anyroadup, with no more than my trusty Philips No2 screwdriver I took it to bits, cleaned it out and put it back together again. ;-)
The nice thing was it was obviously /designed/ to be serviced as many of the parts simply clipped out and in, gears clipped onto shafts etc.
It reminded me a bit of my time with Kodak on microfilm and fiche machines.
The next experiment might be to service / refill a toner cartridge.
The 5L was one of the less satisfactory machines for servicing (or so a long time HP service guy told me). And, indeed, I acquired one and found that it wasn't *that* good. I agree it's better than most modern stuff, though.
The repair guy said that the older HP printers were a lot better than the
5L (but bigger and more expensive). I have a number of LaserJet 4+{M} machines, and they are wonderful....not trouble to service etc. I bought the last two off eBay at 7 quid the pair, and it took under 40 minutes to fix the faults on both of them. (yes, I know about shipping costs but these were 20 mins drive away)
Oh, and I do have a monster fiche machine too (with printer). Haven't had to fix it yet though.
Don't know the 5L, but the thing to watch out for is to empty the 'used' toner reservoir, before adding a new charge of toner. I've actually refilled toner units on our 3330mfp several times - even recycling the stuff from the 'used' reservoir (my first copier actually had a worm drive to accomplish this recycling). The used toner reservoir is not always obvious, and this is where a lot of people go wrong, and soon have toner spewing out everywhere.
Whatever you do don't scratch the drum. Also try to refill original cartridges as I've noticed that the coating on the drums of some commercially refilled items is very thin, and doesn't last much longer than the toner itself.
You can buy an adapted soldering iron (a piece of 15mm copper pipe would do just as well) to make a fill hole in the side of some units, so that you don't have to find how to get them apart (supposedly) but you'll still have to do this to empty the used reservoir. The cartridges on our mfp are in two parts, articulating on short blind steel pins: I had to use a small nail to melt a hole behind these pins so that they could be pushed out.
The problem with our all in one is the fuser unit, which blew at Christmas, and took a lot of negotiating before they would sell me another - or even tell me what one I needed. After all that, I still haven't got round to fitting it as, most of the machine has to be dismantled to make the swap. So HP things aren't *all* made to come apart easily: fusers obviously
*ought* to be straight swap jobs like toner units, but not on our model. (Something to ask about when considering buying.).
S
The HP LJ4 series are great for fusers...open the back door, loosen two screes and pull it out. New ones aren't cheap, but the lamp is cheap if a bit of a pig to replace. If the rollers are shot, it's a complete swap- out job for the fuser though.
I think what I liked about this is was that it was fairly small and therefore 'simple' (U\I had the service manual before I touched it but didn't look at it once for strip or rebuild). You could get all the main rollers out without having to take any side plates off etc.
;-)
Hmm, I've also got a couple of them (with paper-path issues) but they are much bigger and heavier than this 5L.
;-)
The most fun machine was Kodak's microfilm developer. Poke a roll of exposed film on one end and a couple of mins later the film came out the other developed, fixed, washed and dried and even picked itself up on the takeup spool. /Loads/ of baskets of rollers and chemicals. Great fun. ;-)
Still have an original Apple Laserwriter (Mark I), which worked last time I used it, but that was probably about 7 years ago. These were based on a Canon laser printer engine, but with the control board replaced with an MC68000 one produced by or for Apple, with the printer firmware rewritten in fourth/postscript. Main problem is it only has 1MB memory, which isn't upgradable*, and not many apps nowadays produce Postscript programs which can run in 1MB memory anymore.
*I took it to pieces to get to the circuit board to check. The memory is all in DIL chips soldered directly on, and no spare slots. I had to remove hundreds of screws to get enough of the mechanism apart to actually get to the circuit board, and I was completely amazed to get it all back together again afterwards, and find it still worked.
I just watched one being done on Youtube and it did seem pretty straightforward (just a bit messy).
In this cart it looks like it's behind a (scraper) plate in the back half of the toner reservoir.
When I was doing such for Kodak we stored the OPC drum in a black plastic bag and generally out of bright light. The guy on the Youtube vid didn't seem to bother?
Ok.
Again, from the video it looks like this cart uses a similar concept but the pins are visible and can be push in (then recovered and re-used).
Years ago I 'serviced' the fuser on our work Canon LBP 8II and LJIII's (same engine I think). I think a new fuser was about £120 at the time, a recon 60 and the parts for me to do it about 20. ;-)
From memory on the models I did it was a couple of screws at the front and one connector and it just lifted out as a module.
I've been running some test prints though this 5L tonight and at seems like it's got a bit of a pickup problem (either not or picking up a few sheets). It looks like you can get the rollers and splitters on eBay cheap enough so I might do this one and my mates (that's been doing the same thing once the paper quantity drops back in the hopper).
They had the NVRAM with a limit of about 4000 write cycles. I had one for a long time but didn't use it much as I was given my first LJ4, which needed a new fuser bulb and that was all.
It's a very common failure mode on the 5L. I was given one that would only feed single sheets, and I replaced the pickup pad and roller. It's fine now.
Sounds an odd thing for something that has a hugely bright light shone on it everytime it cycles! Possibly, the black bags are reliably clean and dust free inside.
If you have room, keep paper in the airing cupboard. I found the slightest damp made a difference both to pick up and image quality - but nowadays we generally get through paper pretty fast.
I recycling, it is the drums that are the main hassle: it only takes one staple left in a bit of reused paper, and it's £50 down the drain!
IMHO one of the nice things about owning an ancient Laserjet is the plentiful supply of new, sealed, HP-branded toner cartridges for it on ebay for under a tenner delivered...
Clean the rollers, you can get "platen clene" that should rejuvinate rubber ones that have become hard and shiny. Multiple pickup might be a function of the paper stack, eithera bit damp and/or so closely squeezed to getehr from being packed/stacked that air can't get between each sheet. Do you fan, flick book style to seperate the pages, the end that will be picked up when you stick a stack into the printer?
I did (I'd have to say it looks like new in there now). I even wiped out all the crevices inside the case, not a nook left un-cleaned (once I start I can't stop). Some white spirit removed any remains of sticky labels from the outside then a final wipe over with the damp rag and a drop of Cif (or did I use a Jif lemon, so easy to get those confused ) and the jobs a goo§dun. ;-)
All the rubber rollers I wiped with a damp (lint free) cloth and you can feel when they have that squeaky high-grip matte finish to them. The pickup roller was quite worn though and a new one at £2.99 delivered is probably the best solution (already ordered, along with the separator to sort the multi-sheet pickups).
I might look out for some of that as well as I think I'll dig out the big LJ5's I've got somewhere and give them a going over. The guy on the Youtube vid doing the cartridge refurb used a conductive grease on the roller shafts and some sort of lube on the rollers and scraper plate 'wiper'.
Yeah, generally and don't have any issues with the other printers using the same paper stock but they are probably in a better shape.
Well yes, I saw those (and may well get one / a couple) but in the spirit of d-i-y (and only when I had a replacement cart ready ) I thought I might like to strip / clean / refill one and see how I got on. I tried the same with inkjet cartridges once but now the ip4000 ones are costing about £1 each ... ;-)
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