Cleaning a Laserjet 4

[PetrolTed]

I've got crap coming out on the whitespace of my prints.

I wiped the rubber(?) roller thing in the printer yesterday.

What should I be cleaning? Is there a guide online anywhere (I don't have the manual).

[sparkyjohn]

HP's online resource is pretty comprehensive, the manual for the 4si is here

[agent006]

Crap where it shouldn't be is usually the toner giving up. Is there any mess on the green roller on teh cartridge?

[danielson]

Ted, my company sells toner carts and i used to work on the product help desk.

With the series 4 cart all of the imaging bits are in the acutal toner cartridge..and the green bit is the developer...you dont really want to be touching that with fingers!

how much toner is left in cart? take it out and shake it to get an idea plus to also even out the powder..

it may be that there is too much excess toner in the actual printer..run through a cleaning page or just give it a wipe out inside..

is the toner sticking correctly in the right places on the page or coming off?

[malman]

Another place to check on these is the fuser. Its behind the door on the back of the printer about half way up. It should have 2 rollers 1 heated and the other is a pressure roller. The fuser roller can get damaged (scratches etc), which makes it hold non fused toner which it kindly deposits down the page.

If the crap is in a repeated pattern down the page then its probably on a roller. If you measure the distance between the repeated pattern you can figure out which roller it is by circumference (sp?). Dunno if the HP service guide has the distances in?

As someone already mentioned the toner cartridge is the usual suspect. Beg, borrow or steal another to test it.

[PetrolTed]

Thanks. It is repeating patterns so I guess it must be the roller. The cartridge is still churning out dark print so I didn't suspect that. That said it is about two years old now.

[malman]

Scratches and damage on the developer roller can again cause what you see. You can inspect it (very carefully - no fingers on the green bit) by lifting the flap on the cartridge and then spinning the drum using the helical cut gear in the end. Spinning is an exageration as its bloody hard to turn with your finger nail in the gear cuts. The green bit should be clean and free from scratches. If the printer has had labels through it then you can get glue and bits of crap stuck to it. Its quite soft and scratches very easily giving little refuge spots for toner to hide when it should get wiped off. Its much easier just to borrow a good one or put your possibly bad one in another printer and see if the fault follows it. Very tricky if you don't have access to more than one printer

If it is damaged its time for a replacement.

Hope that helps

[DontLift]

Ted if it's not the cartridge and you need repairs call my bro at rockhall.co.uk on 0116 2313531

They do replacement 2nd user LJ4's for little cash and also reasonable repairs. I have been running LJ4's for years and just replace it with another at first sign of trouble.

[malman]

They don't make them like they used to Only reason we dumped ours was it developed a nasty laser fault.

[PetrolTed]

Guess it's worth getting hold of another cartridge as this one is pretty ancient. It's been in the printer for two years and was sitting around before that.