trusty hp laserjet 4l

[typo]

i have had this thing like 15 years. it is a workhorse. lately it is putting some very faint lines on the paper. i do not know if it is the rollers or drum. does anyone know if there is a way to clean this thing without completely taking it apart?

thanks

[typo]

nevermind. i just need to clean under the toner cartridge. i am lucky it has worked this long. i just read big things can go wrong with them.

[Ekaros]

Other trick is to shake the catridge, evens the ink...

Still, ones there is empty lines it's soon time to get new one...

I think our HP LaserJet 5L still works, not that there is much use it without getting a box to do the work...

[itlnstln]

I still rock the LJ4 at home, too.  The only thing I have had to replace (other than toner, of course) is the exit rollers.  Replaced those, and it was good as new.  I also have a RAM upgrade and the Jet Direct network card for it, too.  It's a beast.  It also looks like a big lump of butter because it's so yellow.

[Hak Foo]

I use a 5 myself, bought for $9 from a thrift shop with 25,000 page count.  I have a 4+ as a spare (and because it was for sale for $5 at a jumble sale, I figured worth it for the toner cartridge alone).  What worries me is that any new printer comes with terrible drivers and obnoxious utilities designed to insist you replace the toner cartridges all the time.

[iMav]

I've got a LJ4 as well.  Bought the thing 8 years ago from a guy for $10.  Has a jetdirect card and a nearly new toner cartridge (I'm actually still on that same cartridge).  

[itlnstln]

I've got a LJ4 as well.  Bought the thing 8 years ago from a guy for $10.  Has a jetdirect card and a nearly new toner cartridge (I'm actually still on that same cartridge).  

That's the key.  I print so little that I don't think I will ever replace the cartridge in it.  It's about the only vintage piece of equipment I keep in the house other than a couple of Model Ms.

[bhtooefr]

I can't justify the space needs of an LJ4 in my current apartment, and I've got a perfectly good Brother HL-2070N that just keeps on truckin' with my low print volume.

(An LJ4P, if I didn't have the HL-2070N, I could get away with, but they have to use external JetDirects, or I'd have to plug it into my server. Not a huge deal, but...)

[firestorm]

The LaserJet 4/4L/etc... and LaserJet 5 printers were truly great printers.  We have at least one 5 still running here, and we just auctioned off the rest of the 4's and 5's a year ago.  They're completely serviceable and probably designed for a duty cycle of about 20,000 pages per month.  That's low for a printer of that class today, but still more than most home users would throw at it.

Printer repair isn't my core job, but I've had many of these apart over the last 12+ years.  It's not hard at all to tear one of these (or newer models of the same class) right down to the frame.

There's not a whole lot that can go wrong inside a laser printer.  If you get vertical lines, the drum may be worn, scratched or have dirt lodged in it.  Low toner usually results in vertical bands.  Both the drum and low toner would be resolved by simply replacing the toner cart.  The transfer roller can get weak (black spongy roller beneath the toner cart) and cause problems with pulling the toner off the imaging drum down onto the paper.  

Besides the toner though, the only parts we generally have to replace regularly on workgroup class lasers is the pickup rollers and the fuser.  The fuser is just a hot iron that melts the toner on the paper.  When it doesn't get hot enough, it doesn't properly fuse the toner.  It's less of an issue on printers from the 4000 series and older though, as those were before the "fast start" fusers became prevalent.  The 4/5 printers aren't very fast either.  With newer printers like our 4200 series printers, the paper passes through at amazing speeds, and the fuser must do its job in a *much* shorter time.

FWIW, we had only one 4/5 series printer (out of 8-10 printers) that became a lost cause.  The formatter (i.e. processor) failed.  It was repairable, and wouldn't have cost much, but nobody wants a 15 year old printer that prints at 10-20% of the speed of the newer printers and takes 2-4 minutes for the fuser to warm up.  I tore the carcass down and gave the spare parts to my boss, who has a 4M+ at home.

[itlnstln]

My Brother has already outlasted the typical HP inkjet you buy today.

It is over a year old.

I was getting to the point where I buy the inkjet at Costco and toss them instead of buying ink refills.

This is sad but true.  As long as I can get toner refills, I don't think I will ever need another printer again.  I just print that little, though, since everything is pretty much electronic these days.  Hell, as a society, we have even gotten away from printed photos.

[typo]

vacuuming it made it worse. it was just dirt on the rollers. i got "laser printer cleaning pages" from office depot. fixed 100%. i am capable of tearing it down but i doubt i ever will. i got it with 16,000 pages and i print about 40 pages a month. yes, four oh. so speed is not an issue to me either.  i just use a tigerdirect serial to usb cable. it is actually half the zize of the brother. my problem with the brother is exactly what ripster said. i can get the machine with cartridges for less than a set of cartridges!

as far as inkjets the last good hp was the 5550. that was a seriously good photo printer. now for photos, it's the top 'o the line cannon. $700 but it is way better than most lab's quality.

the thing is, even 5 year old workgroup class gear is better than current home gear and can be had for pennies on the dollar. i did finally give up on crt's though. it was the geometry on lcd's that won me over. of course no $300 lcd will match a sony gdm crt in pq either.

[typo]

i feel pretty stupid. i thought this thing spit out the pages with the printed side facing up. after i repaired it the pages are coming out face down. seeing the internals i am sure it is not possible it changed direction. somone just tell me, face up or face down.

thanks.

[bhtooefr]

Most HP lasers, including the 4L, are face down.

[majestouch]

I just retired a 4L last year after it needed a repair the went beyond replacing the rollers and transfer unit. The cost of the repair and the disadvantages of the power consumption and speed were reason enough to get something new.

Out of curiousity I dismantled the thing and discovered that most of the electro-mechanics and circuit boards say Hitachi (made in Japan) on them.

[typo]

thanks. i never payed attention to which way it faced. i figured that was impossible.

the transfer roller is putting one very thin line. i don't feel it is worth taking apart for that. any way to clean it without taking it apart? my problem is that there is toner everywhere inside of it. so i figure i am going to have problems soon. there are nicer printers for $200 but i doubt they last as long as this.

[bhtooefr]

The print engines in many earlier HP lasers are bought from Canon, FWIW.

[NamelessPFG]

Don't own a LaserJet 4L, but I'd hope that the drivers aren't bloated to hell and back like the Photosmart 3210's. (They shouldn't be, anyway; HP tends to be less obnoxious with the bloatware on business-class products.)

But, driver bloat aside (which could be toned down, I'm sure, but at the cost of the scanner functions), the 3210's working pretty well for a sub-$8 Ethernet-capable printer from a thrift store. (Albeit needing $70 for a full set of HP 02 carts after that; **** gets expensive fast! Gotta get some refillable carts with auto-reset chips one of these days.) Photos look great as far as I can tell, and the print speed rivals and even surpasses some lasers in draft mode/quality. (Just DON'T GET THE PRINTS WET AT ALL COSTS. The ink WILL run. Not a problem for laser printers, of course, because the toner's fused to the paper with heat.)

Ideally, I'd have a monochrome laser for Word documents and an even higher-quality inkjet for photos, but as it stands, that thing still beats the hell out of the Lexmark X2350 before. (That had unified carts with built-in print heads that ran out of ink quite quickly, and even more irritatingly, it lacked Ethernet and was tethered to an old Windows XP machine. Not good when the other primary PCs run Windows 7 64-bit.)

[bhtooefr]

Let me put it this way: The LaserJet 4L predates Win95, and every version from 95 since has included barebones drivers.

[NamelessPFG]

Let me put it this way: The LaserJet 4L predates Win95, and every version from 95 since has included barebones drivers.

That tells me all I need to know, along with the fact that it still works now. I'll see if I can dig up one in a thrift store like I did the Photosmart 3210 (and hopefully not have to replace the toner cartridge or drum, if they still make them).

I certainly don't miss my Parallel Port to USB dongle.

I'd say that either connection is doing it wrong in a household with more than one computer. Gotta have a printer with Ethernet so it can be connected to the router and accessed by anything also connected to said router.

(That said, I don't get why they're putting Wi-Fi in new printers, unless it's to have it connect to a Wi-Fi router when an Ethernet cord run would be too much hassle.)

[typo]

lol ripster. see, now you will really find out just how great that color laser is!

the cannon 7750 or something will output color that walks all over any laser. that is even more expesnive on ink. the photos beat almost any lab. gotta pay to play i guess.

the 4l is perfect for documents where speed is not required. it should last many more years if you get one with less than 50,000 pages. some guy asked me if it is two years old haha. i said try 20! the fact that it works on 2008 is amazing in and of itself.

[YetAnotherDeveloper]

i used a 5L for years.  I now have a Brother 2140, it was something like 100$ on sale with extra toner.its fine for my B&W needs.  I also sport a epson for photo printing.

[typo]

you have to understand that brother is not in the same class as the 5l though. a new workgroup class printer starts at like $1,500. as you said it is fine for your needs. mine too. which is why i might replace this with a  $200 new unit now. i do not require a workgroup printer to print 40 pages a month.

i am getting four lines per page from the transfer roller. a new printer costs the same a a toner cart for the 4l.....so.

[Hak Foo]

Actually, when I went to set my networked Laserjet 5 up on 64-bit Win7, you have to do the "Ask Windows Update for More Drivers" thing to get the drivers now.  On Vista, it was on disc.

[D-EJ915]

I use CUPS for my printer sharing, I don't even bother with windows' crap printer sharing lol.  On my windows boxes - yep I use a CUPS share.  No print spooler overloading, freezing or just being retarded when you print a text document and it mysteriously stops printing until you delete all of the jobs.

[typo]

darnit. i thought i fixed it. it is putting 4 lite lines horizontally on each page. the lines are like a fraction of a mm and spaced every four inches.

if anyone knows what is doing this i'd be thankful.

the thing is, i do not really need a new printer for what i use this one for.

thanks

[typo]

i knew this thing had way too few pages to have a serious failure. i opened the flap on the crap reman cartridge. i am looking right at the line that is showing up on the pages! after several cleanings with isopropyl alcohol it is fixed to my satisfaction. there are a few small specks but the cartridge is obviously poop. it still has thousands of pages left so it is good enough for me.

fixed!