Laser Printer paper-grabbing woes.

[Grall]

I bought a color laser printer back in 2006-ish, thinking that toner, unlike ink cartridges, won't dry out, so this thing's gonna last forever. AAHHAHAHAAHAHAAA! Or, that's what the printer manufactuers said anyway, because now, a number of years later, this thing can't grab a paper from the magazine if its life depends on it. It has printed very, very little, so it's certainly not worn out or anything like that. I'm still on the original toner cartridges delivered with the printer, and it does print if I hand-feed it paper through the front mailslot opening one at a time, but that's such a damn hassle. It just can't grab paper out of the magazine...

Is there anything I can do to try and fix this, or is the whole 15-something kilo lump of a device just a write-off basically? I have almost zero experience with printers, they basically just sit in their corner and collect dust until I need to print something every tenth of a blue moon or so.

 

[Lightman]

I bought a color laser printer back in 2006-ish, thinking that toner, unlike ink cartridges, won't dry out, so this thing's gonna last forever. AAHHAHAHAAHAHAAA! Or, that's what the printer manufactuers said anyway, because now, a number of years later, this thing can't grab a paper from the magazine if its life depends on it. It has printed very, very little, so it's certainly not worn out or anything like that. I'm still on the original toner cartridges delivered with the printer, and it does print if I hand-feed it paper through the front mailslot opening one at a time, but that's such a damn hassle. It just can't grab paper out of the magazine...

Is there anything I can do to try and fix this, or is the whole 15-something kilo lump of a device just a write-off basically? I have almost zero experience with printers, they basically just sit in their corner and collect dust until I need to print something every tenth of a blue moon or so.

Rubber tyres used to grab paper degrade with time as rubber starts to crack. You can replace them as this is common issue. Alternatively if rubber is in good condition then it might just need a clean to degrease contact surface of tyres.

In office printers changing or cleaning tyres is 5 min. job but home printers are a pain and can take up to 1h to get to them ...

Good luck!

 

[Arwin]

Two other important notes with laserprinters (I have one at home too, color, with scanner, copier, very happy with it):

- make sure you use good paper. Laserprinters are typically much more finicky, and the regular light-weight paper used for inkjet printers often don't work well.
- generally, if you have paper that curls even the slightest bit when the weather (or your room) gets warm/moist, it's bad paper.

So in this case, 'suitable for laser-printers' actually means something ...

My wife had such issues initially, buying the wrong paper twice, but now we haven't had any more issues like that.

Hope this helps! Otherwise, it's very likely the issue lightman describes.

 

[Lightman]

Two other important notes with laserprinters (I have one at home too, color, with scanner, copier, very happy with it):

- make sure you use good paper. Laserprinters are typically much more finicky, and the regular light-weight paper used for inkjet printers often don't work well.
- generally, if you have paper that curls even the slightest bit when the weather (or your room) gets warm/moist, it's bad paper.

So in this case, 'suitable for laser-printers' actually means something ...

My wife had such issues initially, buying the wrong paper twice, but now we haven't had any more issues like that.

Hope this helps! Otherwise, it's very likely the issue lightman describes.

That's true for paper which curls due to heating and moisture, but the jams would occur in Fusing unit of a printer and not on pick-up of paper (not even able to print from manual feed as the reason for jam would be further in the printer and affecting all paper sources).
Most desktop laser use only 130C-140C to fuse toner but the faster heavy duty machines they go to 170C-210C and then even using 'universal ink-jet and laser' paper is a receipt for constant jams. Only proper Laser printer paper will work. :smile:

 

[Arwin]

I've definitely experienced pickup issues due to bad paper as well

 

[Lightman]

I've definitely experienced pickup issues due to bad paper as well

Is some cases when paper is too slippery due to surface texture or grease, yes it absolutely is possible.

 

[Grall]

I use special color printer paper (which was bloody hell expensive), and actually now that I remember - it's been quite a while now since I last tried using this printer so some of the details slipped my mind - it's not that the printer can't GRAB the paper per se because it starts to suck it into its interior, but then something wonky happens in the works and I get a paper jam error message and I have to open the magazine tray and pull the paper out of there manually.

When the printer resets I hear all the gears whirr inside of there like I'm used to hear it, it doesn't seem like the mechanics itself is in poor shape, and the little rubber wheels seem sticky enough (I think they're made of silicone, not latex rubber)... It just doesn't seem to "want" to eat the paper properly. *shrug*

 

[orangpelupa]

maybe try to use normal paper 80gram? if it works, then maybe the aged expensive paper is too aged.

 

[Lightman]

I use special color printer paper (which was bloody hell expensive), and actually now that I remember - it's been quite a while now since I last tried using this printer so some of the details slipped my mind - it's not that the printer can't GRAB the paper per se because it starts to suck it into its interior, but then something wonky happens in the works and I get a paper jam error message and I have to open the magazine tray and pull the paper out of there manually.

When the printer resets I hear all the gears whirr inside of there like I'm used to hear it, it doesn't seem like the mechanics itself is in poor shape, and the little rubber wheels seem sticky enough (I think they're made of silicone, not latex rubber)... It just doesn't seem to "want" to eat the paper properly. *shrug*

Silicone tyres are more durable and should last on average 100000 prints (depending on manufacturer).
If it sometimes jams and sometimes prints it might be due to bad paper, dirty or failing sensor (most of them are dust sensitive as they are photointerruptors), registration roller not aligning paper properly and so on.
What is the model of your printer?
If it has service mode accessible from panel then you should be able to view jam logs and pinpoint in which section of printer paper gets stuck. That would help with diagnosis a lot.

Also check if any part of leading edge of paper is not bent as this might mean you have something stuck inside of mechanism blocking clear path of paper. I've seen cases where there was a bit of paper stuck which sometimes printed page would clear and another time jam because of it.

BTW from my experience working for photocopier company if your printer is old and cheap, it makes more sense to just scrap it and get new one instead of fixing it as even small parts can cost £50-£100 where new cheap laser can be had for £150+
In your case it might be something small and easy to put straight if you want to spend few hours to fix it so the call is yours

 

[Grall]

It's a Dell 1320c - it has no front panel display at all, so no way to access any service mode - if applicable. Or well, not that I know of anyway, maybe if you have some kind of diagnostics module designed for this, or similar printers. Dell printers are re-packaged OEM stuff anyway (a Lexmark in this case? *shrug* You seem to know a lot more about this stuff than I do! )

 

[Lightman]

It's a Dell 1320c - it has no front panel display at all, so no way to access any service mode - if applicable. Or well, not that I know of anyway, maybe if you have some kind of diagnostics module designed for this, or similar printers. Dell printers are re-packaged OEM stuff anyway (a Lexmark in this case? *shrug* You seem to know a lot more about this stuff than I do! )

In that case the best you can do is to change paper and clean all accessible silicone tyres with alcohol based solution to degrease them.
This is one of these machines if I see one I say - are you sure you want me to try and fix it or rather you just go to shop and buy new one!

I have 10 years of experience working for Photocopier dealer in one form or another, but I mostly worked on floor standing colour machines from Ricoh, Canon and Minolta. They are designed to be serviced periodically and everything is much easier to access than on little desk lasers.