Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Hi awakephd

I was right, he posted the following (which I replied to AND it was also included in my reply), what do you say now Andy? At best it was totally missleading what he wrote or GIGO?:-

Thanks for the info, everyone. I'll do a little more experimenting before giving up on the printer, but I'm going to hedge my bet and pick up an HP
P1006 from Staples on the way home and return it if I can get mine working.
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I've got two off-brand cartridges, both of which seem to exhibit the same quarter-inch-wide stripe down the left third of the page and generally thin
toner density, even with all of the settings properly set up for max density.
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The stripe makes me think that there's something else that needs
maintenance, ∗on top∗ of needing a good toner cartridge (probably an official HP one). Just a replacement cartridge for this printer is north
of $50 on eBay, which I would gladly do if I thought that was all I needed.

Live and learn. This printer's still got plenty of life left in it, I
think, just not for PCBs!

--
Brian Lalor
blalor@...
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Andy,

I hate to disagree with someone who has such an excellent name, but I am 99% sure it is the light-sensitive drum that is contained in the HP toner cartridge, especially since Brian reported above that the second cartridge did not show this stripe.

Note -- you are right the the problem is not the ∗toner∗, but rather it is the drum in the toner cartridge that is at fault. I have seen this problem again and again when the drum begins to go bad. On printers with separate toner and separate drum, that is very bad news, because the drum often costs more than a new printer. On HP's, however, you replace the drum every time you replace the toner cartridge. The problem you can run into with a low-cost recycled cartridge is that they only replace the toner. That's fine if the drum is still good, but doesn't help at all if the drum has gone bad.

FWIW, I am pretty sure the HP 4050 is a true laser printer, not LED or LCD.

Regards,

Andy Wakefield


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