Quote from: Papyrus on Yesterday at 04:01:36 PMAnother plea for help, I'm afraid.

We have a Brother L3210 laser printer which has developed a fault I can't seem to rectify. Most of the time now prints come out with a band of smudges down the left hand side:


I've gone through the troubleshoot pages and tried everything they suggest - I've cleaned the corona wires, cleaned the drums, changed the toner cartridge but nothing has made any difference. Mrs P is getting frustrated because she has a lot of printing to do - she's never liked the printer anyway - but I'm reluctant to shell out for a new one. Has anybody come across this before, and if so, what did you do about it?

Curiously, I printed off a photo on to photo paper this morning and it was absolutely fine.

All ideas considered!

Cheers,

Chris

You mention it printed a photograph OK which would use the three colours (if it was a colour picture  ) So it could be the black toner cartridge has a fault, especially if it's one of those off-brand or re-manufactured ones.
Worth a try rather than splashing out on a new printer and inks, especially if you don't print much, as I tend to agree with others that inkjet dries out too quickly if not used regularly.

Quote from: ntpntpntp on Today at 06:55:54 PMWe moved to laser printers many years ago due to infrequent use but sometimes print in volume.  Inkjets just kept getting clogged through lack of regular use.

I agree that inkjets are still better for photo quality printing but it's very rare that we bother to print photos.  We do have an inkjet sitting in a corner, which reminds me I should fire it up and put a test page through it.

Likewise - I use an old HP CP1515N colour laser which, on decent paper/card, does a reasonable job of photos and does a nice job of model railway scenic paper. I can also refill the cartridges up to 3-4 times before they lose quality.

I got it when I was still doing a lot of photography and it was fine for, say, calendars. If I had any images that I really wanted as large, top quality, prints I used to send them off to a company that did them for me on proper chemically processed photo paper at a very reasonable price.
I had an A3 inkjet printer which could produce beautiful prints but would frequently stop printing one colour partway through, wasting both the paper and all the other inks - hence sending the images away to be done.

I do have an inkjet printer sat in the corner but I only use the scanning facility on it as it's LAN connected so I don't have to faff around swapping USB leads. I'd be extremely surprised if it could print anything without replacing all the cartridges.

We moved to laser printers many years ago due to infrequent use but sometimes print in volume.   Inkjets just kept getting clogged through lack of regular use.

I agree that inkjets are still better for photo quality printing but it's very rare that we bother to print photos.  We do have an inkjet sitting in a corner, which reminds me I should fire it up and put a test page through it.

Our old Canon inkjet was a pain in the neck to keep the nozzles clear, which is partly why we were persuaded to switch to a laser. However, we have found the print quality to be poorer - the supposedly black print is barely better than dark grey and photo printing is awful. Whether we were just unlucky or they are all like that, I don't know, but we are hoping that an inktank printer might give us what we need with fewer maintenance problems.

Cheers,

Chris

As long as your Inkjet printer is used frequently then that should be fine.

But for infrequent use a Laserjet is a better deal as the toner cartridges don't dry out like Inkjet cartridges.

Regards,

John P

Thanks for all the useful suggestions. I have now:

...cleaned all drums and surfaces. No difference.

...tried a different brand of paper. No difference.

...taken all the cartridges out and vacuumed inside. No difference.

Waste toner collector?!? I didn't know it had such a thing. Some serious thumbing through the online manual found that it does indeed have one, but it tells you when it needs replacing apparently, and I've had no error messages so it can't be that. A day's never wasted when you learn something.

Anyhoo, the long and the short of it is that we are done with laser printers. It's getting to the stage where it needs new colour cartridges and a complete set is well north of £100. We have decided we would rather put the money towards a new inktank printer. If it means Mrs Papyrus has to do a lot of reprinting, so be it; it's probably the lesser of two evils.

Thanks everybody for your help.

Cheers,

Chris

Check the pinch rollers are clean?    @Yet_Another makes a good point about checking the waste toner collector if it has one?

Usual disclaimers.
If there's excess toner floating about, is it possible that the toner collector is full?

Stray toner? Maybe try vacuuming out the innards of the printer?

Anything's worth a try. We have used the same brand of paper for years, in both 80gsm and 100 gsm form, with absolutely no issues until now. I think I have another brand stashed away somewhere - I'll see if I can find it.

Cheers,

Chris