Homebrew_PCBs

23 September 2017


My venerable HP LaserJet 4000N has packed up today, probably not worth
repairing dues to age. before i go out and buy another cheap B&W used
laser printer here in the UK can anyone please recommend anything
cheap that will work well creating dense artwork on clear film or
heavy "tracing" type paper for photo resist PCB usage? Thanks. As my
printers get irregular home usage don't really want an ink jet as i
got sick of coming to them to find the nozzles were blocked or the
damned thing was out of ink. I have a basic colour laser, but I have
always had a B&W monochrome laser for large print runs as the toner
lasts forever here.



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Best regards,
Chris mailto:chris@...

Not sure what 'inexpensive' is to you.

A HP LaserJet P2015dn bought on E-Bay might be just what you want.

I would be very wary of an HP2015 on ebay. I have one of them, and I can tell you that it is one of the worst quality printers ever to reach the market.  When it works, it is spectacular. The problem is that many of them suffered from a severe soldering problem with the fuser board. HP refused to acknowledge the problem, repairing only the ones in warranty, and not selling replacement boards for the others that failed.  At the time, the HP forum was filled with complaints about these printers, yet HP just ignored the problem. One of the forum contributors came up with a "fix" that required baking the board at high temperature for 15 minutes. Yay! It worked. Trouble is that is only works for a while, and then the problem comes back. Baking again makes it work, but with each baking the working interval gets shorter, until it doesn't work at all.

Be advised: even if it works when you get it, there is a high probability that it will fail. I paid a printer repair house to repair it before the fix was made public. The "replacement" board turned out to have been cycled through the fix, and it eventually failed. Replacement boards available on the internet are in the same category. HP did not put replacement boards on the market.

Harvey

 

A HP LaserJet P2015dn bought on E-Bay might be just what you want.

Use only genuine HP ink also for best results. I do.

Kevin,

You were one of the lucky ones. I think that if it has worked this long, your board doesn't have the problem.

HP was very secretive about this problem, but from what I can gather, there were one or more runs of bad fuser boards that may have been assembled in China. The reports on the forum ranged from failure after a few months to about 18 months. Mine failed at about 13 months. HP repaired the ones still in warranty, and didn't even acknowledge the rest. I sent a letter to the CEO, who claimed that he had an open door to hear about problems. I did get an acknowledgement of my letter with a promise for a response. There was no response. I had a pleasant conversation with their head of Quality Assurance who could not help because the printer was out of warranty. He offered me two cartridges as a consolation prize.

That same board was used in several other models, and there were some complaints from a few owners of those models. Since there were a relatively small number of complaints on the other models, it would appear that they did have good boards. They never offered them as replacements for the failed P2015 boards.

My story does have a happy ending. One day I realized that the credit card on which I purchased the printer included an extended warranty for items purchased with it. Just in time, I contacted the credit card company, and made the proper application. I received a full refund on the printer, so I was only out the ~$80+ I paid for the repair. I still have the printer, and I am contemplating a repair process for the board. I know which BGA chip has the problem, and I will try to resolder it. Just need to find the time.

Harvey

 

Never heard that one before. Mine bought locally worked good from the beginning till today 3 years later.

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Hello PCB'ers

Thanks for the replies. I went to a fairy local large printer refurb
place yesterday and they ran my pdf ile through a few different laser
black and white printers and the results were less than stunning. The
senior technician there reckoned a thermal wax printer would be more
appropriate and has set one up for me to try today. he says the
results on my transparency film were much better than even a high end
laser achieved.

has anyone any experience of using a thermal wax printer for
transparencies for photo resist board?



Monday, September 25, 2017

> At work (office) we have 3 hp2015dn printer for years (4 or 5 or more years, I don't remember).
> Used daily.

> They have always worked well...also with not original toner :)


> it is true that hp don't repair later than 1 years...but in this case we were lucky

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Best regards,
Chris mailto:chris@...