Laser printers allow you to produce high-quality prints of graphics and text at high speed. The images produced by these devices are resistant to fading, abrasion and moisture. The laser printer cartridge consists of drum, squeegee, corotron and magnetic shaft. Image drum, or photoreceptor, is often called the heart of the cartridge, because the print quality depends on it.
What is a photoconductor
Image drum is a photosensitive element of a laser printer that can be located directly in the printer or in a cartridge. Its design is a hollow aluminum cylinder with a dielectric coating.
What is a photoconductor used for?
On photo drum an image is formed, which is subsequently transferred to paper. This happens as follows:
- When a command to start printing is received photoconductor receives a negative charge, due to which it repels toner particles;
- A laser beam is applied to a photosensitive surface drum imprint of the document, changing the charge in the marked areas from negative to positive;
- Sites drum with a positive charge attract toner;
- Rolling over a sheet of paper, photoconductor transfers the image to its surface.
Replacing the photoconductor
A photoreceptor is a consumable item whose service life is not infinite. But how do you understand when is it time to change the drum unit??
The resource of the photodrum is small. The photodrum installed in the cartridge is enough for 2-10 thousand copies, which in terms of the resource of the cartridge itself is 3-4 refills. U drum, which is located directly in the printer, has a larger resource (enough for several tens of thousands of copies), but it also needs regular replacement.
Difficulty level: Not easy
1 step
The photodrum (OPC – Organic Photo Conductor, Drum unit) is a hollow metal cylinder coated with a photoconductive coating. It is the main part of cartridges for laser printers and copying machines. Using it, toner is applied to a sheet of paper. The average resource of a photodrum is about 2 - 10 thousand pages, that is, you can refill the cartridge 3 - 4 times, after which the drum will need to be replaced.
Step 2
Signs of wear. When the image drum wears out, black vertical stripes appear on the edges of the print (see picture). On the left, wear has just begun; on the right, the photodrum is completely worn out.
Step 3
Worn out drums
You most likely will not find an original photodrum for sale. Thanks for this must be said to the cunning printer manufacturers who want to rake in money by selling new cartridges (50 - 80% of the cost of the printer). You'll have to buy compatible ones. For example, photodrums produced by AEG have shown themselves to be excellent. The cost of a photodrum ranges from 5 to 20 USD, depending on the printer model.
Step 4
Replacement. Remove the cartridge from the printer. Push out the pins holding the two halves of the cartridge together. Disconnect the cartridge, unscrew the screw on the cover and remove it. Carefully remove the sleeve holding the photodrum and turn it off the axis. Install a new image drum and reassemble the cartridge. Please note that it is better to work in a darkened room; you cannot shine a light on the new drum. Source website
- Attention! If you have never disassembled a laser cartridge and do not know how to do it, contact a specialist.
- Do not use a new drum unit.
I am glad to welcome you to the site site. In this article I will show how to change the drum with a chip on the CE314A unit, and also describe the process of removing or replacing cartridges from HP CLJ Pro M176/M177 printers. By the way, if you need instructions for refilling these cartridges, click.
Replacing cartridges.
You can always see the level of toner remaining on the chip on the screen of the M176 and by clicking the “Toner” icon on the M177.
If you need to remove a cartridge, you need to press the button for changing cartridge positions.
On the screen you will see the message “Moving ..... cartridge.” The cartridges move in order, so if you see the wrong color on the screen, then press the cartridge change button again, or several times, until you get the desired result.
If you need to get several cartridges, or all cartridges. Then your actions will be in the following order:
- We chose to move the desired cartridge, opened the lid, and took out the cartridge.
- Close the lid and press the cartridge movement button one or more times. Open the lid and take out the cartridge.
- Repeat procedure No. 2 once or twice.
Insert cartridges in the same way, but to be completely sure, when you insert cartridges, pay attention to the color of the sticker with right side so as not to confuse the colors.
The HP CLJ Pro M177 printer has a slightly simpler process. Here you need to click on the toner icon (on the touch panel).
To remove the cartridge you need, simply click on the appropriate icon and the printer will move the cartridge to allow removal.
Replacing the drum and chip in the CE314A unit.
To remove DRUM from the MFP, lift the scanner unit and the cartridge compartment cover. The drum unit is located at the front, hook the front cover on the left side of the paper tray and lift it up.
Pull the DRUM CE314A towards you by the handle. If you are changing the entire unit, then simply replace the old one with a new one, having first removed all the protective packaging tapes from it. We, in in this case, we will change the photo roller and chip, since it is much cheaper and without loss of print quality.
Removing the drum is very simple, unscrew two bolts on both sides, remove both side covers, and the drum will roll out on its own.
But simply changing the photo shaft is not enough; here we still have to clean the parts and the waste bin. If you do not do this, in the future you will have dirty printing, since the waste toner, due to the overfilling of the hopper, will appear on the image transfer belt and, accordingly, on the paper.
Remove the charge roller and clean it with a dry cloth.
Next we need to remove the squeegee, but the orange tape prevents us from unscrewing the bolts (I honestly don’t know what role it plays here, perhaps the tape cleans the charge roller). We carefully peel it off, trying not to stain the gluing area (in order to glue it back later).
Unscrew the two bolts and remove the squeegee. As you can see in the photo, I have practically no waste, but this is only because I changed the drum three weeks ago (then the waste bin was almost full), and today I just took it apart for the article.
We pour out the waste toner and clean all the parts. Wipe only the metal part of the squeegee; toner should remain on the rubber edge for normal sliding of the photo roller on the squeegee.
We put all the parts back together. Twist the squeegee and stick the orange tape in place. We install the charge roller, lubricate it on the white bushing side with regular grease, and on the black side with conductive lubricant.
In the next photo we see a new drum and chip, which is designed for 14,000 prints. We install the new drum and secure it with the side covers, tighten the bolts.
All we have to do is change the chip. It is as easy to change as when refilling cartridges. Pry it from above with a screwdriver (your fingernail) and push it out. Insert the new chip into the slots. If it's loose in the grooves, I usually put a piece of paper underneath.
We put DRUM in place in the printer and continue to enjoy color printing!!!
Updated: January 11, 2018 by: admin
The cartridge drum has a long life: how often do you change the drum?
Have you ever thought that the drum in your cartridge does not last long? 1-2 refills, and it already needs to be changed. Let's try to figure out what is the reason for the fragility of the cartridge drum (photoreceptor).
Of course, first of all, the life of the cartridge and its parts is influenced by the quality and thoroughness of refilling the cartridge. However, there are a number of other good reasons why you take your cartridge for repair.
First, let's clarify a few important points.
2. Continuous operation is the process of printing one very large job with a huge supply of toner in the hopper and paper in the feed tray. Printing is interrupted only when noticeable defects appear on the paper caused by wear and tear on the photoreceptor. This is the real resource of the photoreceptor.
For younger printer models, the average drum resource ranges from 10,000 to 30,000 pages. We will take as a basis minimum value- 10,000 pages.
You have undoubtedly noticed that the productivity and wear resistance of the cartridge declared by the manufacturer and the actual figures for these indicators differ radically.
The root cause is that the toner supply is limited by the capacity of the hopper, which is quite limited. Therefore, we have a need to refill cartridges.
In addition, the degree of filling of the sheet is of great importance for the number of refills. Most manufacturers declare a certain number of pages (an average of 2,000 pages) that a cartridge can print without refilling, but they clearly specify the percentage of page coverage - 5%, no more. This is 1/5 of our entire resource of 10,000 pages. And if we need to print sheets with 100% coverage, then how long will the cartridge last? The number of pages is reduced by 20 times, and we get a sad figure - 100 pages.
Don't forget about the photodrum. If you only print sheets with 100% coverage, the cartridge will withstand at least 20 times more refills without replacing the drum. Thus, when printing standard documents with 5% sheet coverage (10,000/2,000=5), the cartridge will withstand 5 refills, and 20 times more (5*20=100), that is, 100, with 100% sheet coverage.
But even when you print completely white sheets, you wipe the drum enormously without wasting any toner.
You've probably heard of such a thing as toner saving mode. By turning it on, you get exactly the same sheet coverage, but with less toner, sometimes even 2 times less than usual. Thus, one refill of the cartridge with a standard filling (5%) of the sheet will last you not for 2,000, but for 4,000 pages. However, remember that a new cartridge in standard operating mode wears out 1/5 of the photoreceptor resource, and in economy mode - 2/5 of the resource. After refilling the cartridge, you will have 6,000 pages of drum operation remaining. Are you still working in saving mode? Then it’s not 3, but only 1.5 refills. Your image drum will not even last until the end of the second refill.
At the same time, you, like me, are unlikely to print 2,000 pages at once. Operating the printer in this mode is not intended by the manufacturer and is extremely harmful to it. Therefore, every time, before you start printing, your printer begins to prepare for printing: it warms up the oven and makes several revolutions of the photodrum, cleaning it and charging it at the same time. For HP and Canon printers, this process takes 1 page, while their counterparts from Samsung, Xerox, Oki and others require about 2 pages, and sometimes even up to 3 pages. Please note that the printer undergoes a similar idle run every time you turn it on. Don't believe me? You can disassemble your printer and see for yourself by recalculating the actual idle speed of the photodrum.
And again mathematics helps us. Let's say you print only one page each time and, as a result, you will use up 4,000 pages per refill (instead of the 2,000 originally stated by the manufacturer). Owners of Samsung and Xerox printers have even higher figures - 6,000. And you only printed 2,000 sheets. It's not fair, is it?
You've probably noticed that when you're trying to save money and print on half pages, the drum unit runs out incredibly quickly. Such half-sheets mainly include invoices and invoices to save paper. But do not forget that before starting to print each such invoice, the printer runs the photoconductor dry. This process reduces the drum life by half, and for Samsung printers by three times.
Now talk about the features of printing on A5 sheets. Using A5 sheet instead of A4 sheet, you reduce the image by 2 times and spend 2 times less toner accordingly. But at the same time the drum is forced to spin almost 2 times more. As a result, for Hewlett-Packard printers, drum wear will be (2,000*2*2=8,000) about 8,000 pages per cartridge refill. After such refueling, the drum resource is 4/5 exhausted. If you are the happy owner of a Samsung printer, then the numbers will increase even more (2,000*3*2=12,000) - up to 12,000 pages! You will exhaust the entire life of the photo drum in one refill!
What if you decide to turn on the toner saving mode? Then multiply the resulting numbers by 2 more. What did you get as a result? That's right - the photodrum needs to be replaced at the first refill, but there is still toner left... Miracles? No, reality. Sometimes you are forced to change the drum unit before the original toner runs out. And it’s good if only once. There are cases of replacing the cartridge drum twice before refilling with toner for the first time. Especially with the additional use of low-quality paper.
Have you ever thought that the drum in your cartridge does not last long? 1-2 refills, and it already needs to be changed. Let's try to figure out what is the reason for the fragility of the cartridge drum (photoreceptor). Of course, first of all, the life of the cartridge and its parts is influenced by the quality and thoroughness of refilling the cartridge. However, there are a number of other good reasons why you take your cartridge for repair. First, let's clarify a few important points.
1. The service life of a photodrum should be measured not by the number of refills, but by the number of revolutions it makes. An even more accurate calculation is to measure the drum life by the number of pages it would print in continuous operation.
2. Continuous operation is the process of printing one very large job with a huge supply of toner in the hopper and paper in the feed tray. Printing is interrupted only when noticeable defects appear on the paper caused by wear and tear on the photoreceptor. This is the real resource of the photoreceptor. For younger printer models, the average drum resource ranges from 10,000 to 30,000 pages. We will take the minimum value as 10,000 pages. You have undoubtedly noticed that the productivity and wear resistance of the cartridge declared by the manufacturer and the actual figures for these indicators differ radically. The root cause is that the toner supply is limited by the capacity of the hopper, which is quite limited. Therefore, we need to refill cartridges. In addition, the degree of filling of the sheet is of great importance for the number of refills.
Most manufacturers declare a certain number of pages (an average of 2,000 pages) that a cartridge can print without refilling, but they clearly specify the percentage of page coverage - 5%, no more. This is 1/5 of our entire resource of 10,000 pages. And if we need to print sheets with 100% coverage, then how long will the cartridge last? The number of pages is reduced by 20 times, and we get a sad figure - 100 pages. Don't forget about the photodrum. If you only print sheets with 100% coverage, the cartridge will withstand at least 20 times more refills without replacing the drum.
Thus, when printing standard documents with 5% sheet coverage (10,000/2,000=5), the cartridge will withstand 5 refills, and 20 times more (5*20=100), that is, 100, with 100% sheet coverage. But even when you print completely white sheets, you wipe the drum enormously without wasting any toner. You've probably heard of such a thing as toner saving mode. By turning it on, you get exactly the same sheet coverage, but with less toner, sometimes even 2 times less than usual.
Thus, one refill of the cartridge with a standard filling (5%) of the sheet will last you not for 2,000, but for 4,000 pages. However, remember that a new cartridge in standard operating mode wears out 1/5 of the photoreceptor resource, and in economy mode - 2/5 of the resource. After refilling the cartridge, you will have 6,000 pages of drum operation remaining. Are you still working in saving mode? Then it’s not 3, but only 1.5 refills. Your image drum will not even last until the end of the second refill.
At the same time, you, like me, are unlikely to print 2,000 pages at once. Operating the printer in this mode is not intended by the manufacturer and is extremely harmful to it. Therefore, every time, before you start printing, your printer begins to prepare for printing: it warms up the oven and makes several revolutions of the photodrum, cleaning it and charging it at the same time. For HP and Canon printers, this process takes 1 page, while their counterparts from Samsung, Xerox, Oki and others require about 2 pages, and sometimes even up to 3 pages. Please note that the printer undergoes a similar idle run every time you turn it on. Don't believe me? You can disassemble your printer and see for yourself by recalculating the actual idle speed of the photodrum. And again mathematics helps us. Let's say you print only one page each time and, as a result, you will use up 4,000 pages per refill (instead of the 2,000 originally stated by the manufacturer).
Owners of Samsung and Xerox printers have even higher figures - 6,000. And you only printed 2,000 sheets. It's not fair, is it? You've probably noticed that when you're trying to save money and print on half pages, the drum unit runs out incredibly quickly. Such half-sheets mainly include invoices and invoices to save paper. But do not forget that before starting to print each such invoice, the printer runs the photoconductor dry. This process reduces the drum life by half, and for Samsung printers by three times. Now talk about the features of printing on A5 sheets. Using A5 sheet instead of A4 sheet, you reduce the image by 2 times and spend 2 times less toner accordingly. But at the same time the drum is forced to spin almost 2 times more.
As a result, for Hewlett-Packard printers, drum wear will be (2,000*2*2=8,000) about 8,000 pages per cartridge refill. After such refueling, the drum resource is 4/5 exhausted.
If you are the happy owner of a Samsung printer, then the numbers will increase even more (2,000*3*2=12,000) - up to 12,000 pages! You will exhaust the entire life of the photo drum in one refill! What if you decide to turn on the toner saving mode? Then multiply the resulting numbers by 2 more. What did you get as a result? That's right - the photodrum needs to be replaced at the first refill, but there is still toner left... Miracles? No, reality. Sometimes you are forced to change the drum unit before the original toner runs out. And it’s good if only once. There are cases of replacing the cartridge drum twice before refilling the toner for the first time. Especially with the additional use of low-quality paper.
Do you still want to print on halves?
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Photo drum (photographed) – internal part laser cartridge, with which printing is performed. The drum resource is more than 10,000 pages. However, due to low-quality toner, high room humidity, or temperature changes, the photo roller may begin to print pages with defects: a gray background, stripes, blots, and dots.
Most of the above problems can be solved by cleaning the photo drum. It is produced in MiraxPrint service center and is included in the cost of refilling cartridges. Thus, we provide our clients with the opportunity not only on printing, but also on servicing office equipment!
However, those users who are accustomed to doing everything with their own hands can familiarize themselves with the recommendations from the specialists of the MiraxPrint service center in order to properly clean the photodrum, while avoiding damage to an expensive part.
Important! Cleaning the photo roller yourself may cause damage. In this case, you take full responsibility for the performance of the part.
Do-it-yourself drum cleaner
Before we start cleaning the image drum, let's talk about chemicals. There are many specialized liquids for caring for photo rolls sold on the Internet, but you shouldn’t waste your money. It is enough to wipe the body of the part with microfiber or universal wipes for cleaning that does not leave lint behind.
Note!Do not use products containing alcohol, ammonia or solvents to clean the drum. This will damage the sensitive surface of the part, which is not even recommended to touch, except for cleaning purposes.
Step-by-step instructions for cleaning the photo drum yourself
STEP #1: Turn off the printer. Remove network cable from the socket. Wait about 5 minutes for the printing device to cool down.
STEP #2:Open the front cover, either by yourself or using the button. It all depends on the design features of the device.
STEP #3:Remove the cartridge.
STEP #4:Remove the cartridge protective shutter by unscrewing the corresponding screws. A green or blue drum will be hidden under the curtain. Wipe it with microfiber or an all-purpose cloth. Hold the photo roll by its ends without touching the coating. Otherwise, the remaining traces will be visible on printed documents.
STEP #5: Reassemble the cartridge and install it back into the printer.
On a note! By default, the photodrum is cleaned using a special blade, the so-called squeegee. As it wears out, the gap between the blade and the drum increases, which leads to permanent printing problems. Therefore, during the cleaning process, be sure to check the integrity of the squeegee structure, as well as the level of the gap - it should be the same along the entire line of contact with the photo roll.