Chosen Solution
I have three HP laserjet 4000 n B&W printers which I bought as government salvage at an auction ten years ago. I bought one to use and two more for parts… if I could figure out how to pull them apart and fix them. I am a self confessed proud old fart (65) and grew up in a time when things broke and got fixed. I get !#^&@@ off by people who constantly and unecerssarily keep upgrading. I was nursing when we had few disposable things, again, the break and fix it ideal. So, just heard about this site on the (Aus)ABC radio national programme, The Science Show, and I am delighted you exist, and about bloody time someone did this. I do have a small complaint though. During the show Mr Weis spoke so fast half of what he said was an inaudible blur. Please ask him nicely if he can slow down and then we won’t miss half of what he said, after all, I want to hear what he says because it’s bloody good. But back to my printers. I now need to fix them, because all three have packed up due to a computer error message and it is driving me nuts. I get 10,000 pages from a cartridge, and I refill all my cartridges myself, that includes both colour printers. It’s a quarter of the cost of buying replacement cartridges, and I never buy originals because they are stupidly expensive. Stick with me, I’ll get to the point… I want to fix my B&W printers because they are too good to throw away, and I hate wasting stuff. So, I look up your printer list and mine is not on there, no surprise really because technically they are bloody dinosaurs. Guess what, so am I…sort of, and I work pretty good… most of the time. So, can you please give me some help to get at least one of my B&W printers working again… pretty please? I really don’t want, need nor can I afford a new printer. Note. Currently I am using the black cartridge in my colour printer, but that’s a big beast, uses more energy, etc and only does 6,000 pages not 10,000. Also it doesn’t double sided copies. I love this site, this idea that things can and should be fixed. I think that all companies who deliberately date their stuff by fixing the life of a product should be surgically implanted with a use by self destruction device, somewhere personal… or maybe something that renders them imobile and dependant on outside help… and leave it there until they agree to not build stuff with built in short life redundancy! They are in my mind, petty, short sighted, greedy and selfish little ********** and they are also wrecking our world long term. I so much look forward to your reply. Great site, great thinking and a great idea…see we did do things smarter when I was a kid! Shut up millenials! And, I hate Apple crap! Regards Sarah J Rutherford Adelaide South Australia.
The majority parts that wear out are in the toner cartridges, there is a plastic blade that scrapes off the excess toner off of the imaging drum, this blade can wear or tear and cause toner streaking. The other part that goes out is the fuser, it melts the toner and presses it onto the paper. After those items the things to worry about are the paper pickup rollers, they wear out but can be cleaned with an alcohol pad or lint free cloth with a bit of isopropyl alcohol and the rollers will work for a while. I believe there are maintenance kits available for this model, the kit has a fuser and the paper pickup rollers. The old LaserJet II was a durable model, I worked on one that was improperly packed onto a truck that got blown over in a wind storm. The interior was a mess with toner and the bottom was dented badly. All I had to do was clean up the spilled toner and push the dent back down to get the printer to work.
I have found some service manuals that may help with repairing your printers. Hopefully these will be helpful to you. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w… https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w…
