Is my laser printer's drum wearing out?

3

I've got a feeling that my laser printer's drum could be wearing out. I just printed a fully black page as a test, and this is the result:

Black page indicating possible drum wear-out Click here for high resolution

Note a small degree of horizontal banding as well as overall image "roughness". Is this patterning normal, or is the drum wearing out? Do I need to replace the drum? (I've printed less than 4000 pages on this drum unit.)

Edit: The printer is a Brother HL-2170W. It is nearly three years old and was purchased refurbished; the supplied drum unit has a specified yield of 10,800 pages. The drum was never replaced, and the toner cartridge has 70% of its life remaining. All supplies used in this printer are genuine Brother supplies. I've cleaned the OPC drum itself with minimal improvement, and I've cleaned the corona wire as well. Could the failure be related to the age of the drum unit?

Edit 2: Blank pages are clean and printouts are free of repeating extraneous marks.

bwDraco

Posted 2013-01-10T17:13:44.040

Reputation: 41 701

Question was closed 2013-01-11T15:09:17.287

To a certain extent this is an opinion driven question. When you are doing your normal work do you see drum related streaking? Is it obvious enough to bother you? Personally I print text 99% of the time simply for reference. If I can read it it is adequate so I would not replace it for this. – EBGreen – 2013-01-10T17:20:23.987

The image has been updated. – bwDraco – 2013-01-10T17:29:33.707

Well I definitely wouldn't replace that. – EBGreen – 2013-01-10T17:42:00.793

Does you laser printer have status information about the drum? Our Xerox Phaser 6360N has information about the number of pages certain parts (fuser, imaging unit, etc.) are supposed to be able to create, and it says how many have already been done. Maybe if you bought a cheap drum... – BenjiWiebe – 2013-01-10T17:55:06.657

This is the supplied drum. The drum is supposed to have about 7000 pages of life remaining. – bwDraco – 2013-01-10T18:21:31.823

I wouldn't want to say this is too localized--this can guide other users with laser printers concerned about the drum. – bwDraco – 2013-01-11T02:51:11.853

@EBGreen: Consider expanding upon your comments in an answer. – bwDraco – 2013-01-11T02:52:24.520

So, does your printer software count the number of prints (as I assume you're not taking a note manually :) )? If so, you could just use this information and the image you provided to send it back to Brother and get their comments/replacement! – Dave – 2013-01-11T09:20:23.813

@DragonLord, my comments are that it is a matter of opinion. This is not an answer that fits the intended purpose of superuser.com. That is why I kept them as comments instead of an answer. – EBGreen – 2013-01-11T15:08:49.220

Answers

4

According to eHow, yes, the drum is going bad

As the laser causes the toner to deposit images or words onto paper, over time it can etch lines onto the surface of the drum itself because of the drum's repeated exposure to the laser. Toner begins to stick to those etched lines. As the paper passes over the drum during the printing process, those lines transfer onto the paper. These lines will appear in the same places on each document you print. When you notice these lines, you need to check into replacing the drum.

Read more: The Signs & Symptoms of a Failing Laser Drum | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_12176975_signs-symptoms-failing-laser-drum.html#ixzz2Hass7gw7

Kruug

Posted 2013-01-10T17:13:44.040

Reputation: 5 078

The image has been updated. – bwDraco – 2013-01-10T17:30:14.890

Asked: 2013-01-10T17:13:44.040

Viewed: 12 716 times

Active: 2015-01-31T05:40:42.887