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Printer and Photocopier Troubleshooting and Repair Collection : Toner All Over Paper on Various Brother ..  
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Toner All Over Paper on Various Brother Laser Printers

(From: Robert Wilson (rfwilson@intergate.ca).)

Both my 300 dpi Brother 641 (sold as the 630 in the USA), and my friend's 600 dpi version of the same printer, had a problem where toner ended up all over the page. What a mess.

The problem was that there is a long thin spring that is rotated at one end, and propels the used toner (scraped off the drum) back to the point where toner enters from the toner container. It acts like an Archemedes' Screw, gradually transporting used toner back again for reuse. It also transports fibers of paper that have been scraped off, and therein lies the problem. Brother stupidly "closed" the end of the long spring (its last coil is bent to be in contact with the coil before). The result is that paper fibers (once they reach the end of the spring), get caught in the closed end of the spring and cannot get out.

The fibers build up until they jam the end of the spring and it can no longer rotate. The drive mechanism doesn't know this, and keeps rotating the spring until it breaks (usually right at the driven end).

The solution is to disassemble the printer drum (not all that hard, but not for the faint of heart!), remove the spring (it's about 15 inches long), and bend the end so it engages into the drive gear again. Then, eliminate the original problem by opening the last coil at the far end, so fibers can get out.