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Printers...
Sep. 23rd, 2009 03:35 pmArrgh.
A few days ago, I'd shut of the laser printer since it's too old to have a standby mode. So I figured I could live with waiting to turn it on when I needed to print something.
So I went to turn it on Monday. And got a paper jam error when I printed. After clearing 3 in the same spot, I looked more closely. And saw that a plastic gear that transfers power to the rollers in the fuser assembly area is, not exactly "worn", as much as sort of "shrunken" in the mmiddle. Which is where the other gear engages it. *sigh*.
Probably a simple fix, if you have the parts. Alas, it's an HP LaserJet III and parts are scarce. And I can't pay for what a shop would charge even if they can find the parts.
The Tektronix Phaser isn't co-operating either, but that's a paper sensor and the fix recommended online is a blast of canned air at the sensor. Alas, the diagrams are for the Xerox model (they bought the Phaser line from Tektronix) and the sensor isn't in the pull out shown (or rather the area doesn't *have* a pull out).
Not that the Phaser is a viable solution for most printing. It has a long warmup and "consumes" some of the "ink" at startup. Also, it's been shut down since even though it *does* have a standby mode, it still eats power (it's rated at 10A/115VAC!!!). It doesn't use that much on standby, but it still uses a lot.
And, of course, when I tried to use the printer in therec room (they have a couple of computers for tenant use there), I find that it is out of toner. And a neighbor wandering by tells me it's been that way for *weeks*.
Grr.
Fortunately, there *is* a solution of sorts. Chrissy gave me her HP 3210 because I'd been using it a lot for scanning and she had a better one. It was out or almost out of a couple of colors, but all I needed was black & white.
Downloaded the drivers, installed them and then had the fun of printing the test page. Took several tries.
Y'see, in spite of telling the driver to only print black & white, the silly printer (after taking forever to "notice" the job) insisted on me walking over (it's in the other room) and telling it "yes, I know you are out of yellow, go ahead and print in black and white"
It does this for every print job. And, of course, if you believe the rating, the black cartridge is only good for 500 (or was it 800?) pages. Which makes it around 3 to 4 cents a page. :-(
The laser printer has been running on the one toner cartridge for *years*. And I have an unopened spare (as well as things like paper trays and the like). So getting it fixed or replaced by another LJIII model that can use the same trays and cartridge would be best. *sigh*.
A few days ago, I'd shut of the laser printer since it's too old to have a standby mode. So I figured I could live with waiting to turn it on when I needed to print something.
So I went to turn it on Monday. And got a paper jam error when I printed. After clearing 3 in the same spot, I looked more closely. And saw that a plastic gear that transfers power to the rollers in the fuser assembly area is, not exactly "worn", as much as sort of "shrunken" in the mmiddle. Which is where the other gear engages it. *sigh*.
Probably a simple fix, if you have the parts. Alas, it's an HP LaserJet III and parts are scarce. And I can't pay for what a shop would charge even if they can find the parts.
The Tektronix Phaser isn't co-operating either, but that's a paper sensor and the fix recommended online is a blast of canned air at the sensor. Alas, the diagrams are for the Xerox model (they bought the Phaser line from Tektronix) and the sensor isn't in the pull out shown (or rather the area doesn't *have* a pull out).
Not that the Phaser is a viable solution for most printing. It has a long warmup and "consumes" some of the "ink" at startup. Also, it's been shut down since even though it *does* have a standby mode, it still eats power (it's rated at 10A/115VAC!!!). It doesn't use that much on standby, but it still uses a lot.
And, of course, when I tried to use the printer in therec room (they have a couple of computers for tenant use there), I find that it is out of toner. And a neighbor wandering by tells me it's been that way for *weeks*.
Grr.
Fortunately, there *is* a solution of sorts. Chrissy gave me her HP 3210 because I'd been using it a lot for scanning and she had a better one. It was out or almost out of a couple of colors, but all I needed was black & white.
Downloaded the drivers, installed them and then had the fun of printing the test page. Took several tries.
Y'see, in spite of telling the driver to only print black & white, the silly printer (after taking forever to "notice" the job) insisted on me walking over (it's in the other room) and telling it "yes, I know you are out of yellow, go ahead and print in black and white"
It does this for every print job. And, of course, if you believe the rating, the black cartridge is only good for 500 (or was it 800?) pages. Which makes it around 3 to 4 cents a page. :-(
The laser printer has been running on the one toner cartridge for *years*. And I have an unopened spare (as well as things like paper trays and the like). So getting it fixed or replaced by another LJIII model that can use the same trays and cartridge would be best. *sigh*.
