Brother
has recalled about 100,000 of their printers due to the printers
overheating and possibly causing fires. The recall involves laser printers
with model numbers HL-1040, HL-1050 and HL-1060, plus the MFC-P200
multifunction device, which combines printing, copying and faxing
capabilities. The affected printers were sold between June 1997 and
December 2000, at prices ranging from $300 to $700. Customers owning one
of the recalled models are advised to stop using the printer immediately
and contact Brother at (866) 236-6835 or online to arrange for free
repair. Click
here to read the article
Infotel, V2Premier, Viscom,
ValueVision
General Printer Problems
Some general faults are applicable to most types of printer:
Troubleshooting
Any Printer
Absence of printer initialization on switch-on
This is accompanied by the refusal to self test. The first suspect is
the power supply, after which the system clock should be checked for
activity. The printer's memory, program ROM and ASIC (Application-Specicific
Integrated Circuit - if present) or microprocessor are also
suspects. If the printer is erratic in its initializing process, all of
these need to be checked, taking particular note of loose connections
and bad solder joints.
Problems caused by incorrectly operating sensors
The most obvious sensor failure is a paper-out error message when
paper is available. Erratic carriage returns or print spacing is often
the result of a problem with the position encoder sensor as are frozen
initializations.
Mechanical problems
The refusal to advance paper either intermittently or permanently is
due to defective drive-train components. Motor windings and connections
should be checked together with wiring and power supply voltages. Any
belts and gear trains associated with the motors are candidates for
examination. paper slips or walks around the platen (where applicable),
are caused by unsuitable paper quality, poor roller condition or
alignment or obstructions in the paper path. The latter can also be
responsible for paper wrinkles and tears.
Dot-Matrix Printers
These tend to be slow, noisy and produce printed pages of modest
quality, but they are inexpensive, are insensitive to paper finish and are
needed for multi-part stationary.
Excessively poor print quality points to the ribbon needing replacement
or the ribbon advance mechanism should be investigated. Check also that
the printhead to paper spacing is appropriate for the thickness of paper,
it may be set for envelopes. Otherwise, the printhead or drive circuits
are suspect.
Missing dots on the paper indicates one or more non-operating
pins in the printhead. This could be due to dried ink which can be removed
with an alcohol based solvent. It could also be due to bent pins which
could have arisen if the paper was manually moved while the machine was
printing. If the offending pin does not operate and the pin is not bent,
the driver's output transistor is faulty and should be replaced. the same
possibilities apply when there is a continuous horizontal line of dots.
Bubble Inkjets
The print quality of bubble inkjets rely heavily upon the paper
specification, superior quality being achieved with non-absorbent glossy
paper. Apart from this, poor quality printing can be caused by unsuitable
printhead to paper spacing and dried ink on the printhead. Recent machines
have purge routines to minimize the incidence of dried ink. These are
activated at intervals by the printer itself, but additional cycles can be
initiated by the user. Note that some machines have separate printheads
and cartridge, while others have combined units.
Completely non-working machines may have a power supply fault - those
having separate AC Adaptors can be readily tested and can usually be
economically repaired.
It should be noted that due to the manufacturing techniques employed in
the production of bubble inkjets, the certain replacement parts are almost
as expensive as a replacement printer, so it is wise, when contemplating a
repair, to consider whether purchasing a replacement printer might not be
a wiser investment. This situation exists because while printers are often
sold at discount prices, spare parts rarely are. Also, the modular
construction enables the manufacturer to minimize production costs but it
results in a machine having a few substantial parts, each of which is of
fairly high cost.
Laser Printers
These offer a high standard of print quality, though normally only in
monochrome, and a high throughput of paper. Despite being more
complicated, the lifetime in terms of number of pages printed, is usually
greater than either the dot matrix or the bubble inkjet. As there are many
individual parts which make up a complete printer, economic repairs of
laser printers are more commonplace. Diagnosis is typically aided by an
error description or number displayed on an LCD panel on the printer
and/or by the image on the paper. Reference to the user manual should be
made for the former and the following lists should help in diagnosing the
latter. To supplement the manual, below are suggestions on how to respond
to error messages:
"Warming-up" message continuously shows
FYI
For Infotel, V2Premier, Viscom, ValueVision, etc. computers if you run a
recovery on the system the printer may or may not work again. There
has been an issue with Lexmark Printers such as X73 printer that will not
function afterwards.
Lexmark x73
for Viscom Computers
The
following information is a fix for the Lexmark/Viscom issue with the
printer not being recognized by the PC. Any other specific issues will be
added accordingly and hyperlinked to the "soon to come" Jump
Page. Unplug unit from PC (USB) and wall outlet (electrical) Un-Install
driver(s) for unit Remove all USB controllers from PC Power PC down
Restart PC (with no connections from printer attached) Re-Install USB
controllers: The pc will "usually" ask for a certain .dll file
or system file needed for restoring the USB controller These files can be
found at the following location(s): C:\windows\options\cabs D:\ ****If
files are located on recovery cd**** At this point the PC (Viscom) will be
clean of all possible driver conflicts with USB and Printing; having
re-installed the USB controller drivers in the previous step. Next
Re-Install the printer drivers-software and wait for the request to plug
the printer back in during the install. Plug printer power in and then
plug (USB) chord from printer into USB port on PC. Attempt a test page
from Windows. If the above doesnt work, or if you are getting a
communication error, follow these steps: Install manually to FILE and then
change to LOCAL PORT (USB) With the USB cable unplugged, run prtsetup.exe
from the CD (This is the printer's executable) Point the printer installer
to FILE Finish the Installation. Restart the PC and reconnect the USB
cable. Add New Hardware wizard should run and find everything as a Lexmark
Device. Go to "Start->Settings->Printers Right click on the X73
icon and select Properties, go to Details Add a port as type LOCAL PORT.
Name it USB. Delete the FILE port Communication should be established.
Lexmark
45xx printers that continuously print black pages and have intermittent
service errors need a transferkit.
Ink Jet |
Laser | Dot Matrix
