hp laserjet 4L printing light

[tiktak]

okay, I just bought a used hp laserjet 4L, brought it home. first few
powerups were paper jams, so I replaced the paper in tray and now seems okay
as far as paperjams, however, printing a few pages gives me lighter, much
lighter (or in econo mode, barely visible) print on the left handside of the
printout, for I'd say 1 inch of the print, top to bottom.

is this a sign the toner is running out? maybe cleaning? how do I check
toner left??? if not toner, how to resolve this problem?

by the way, I installed this printer with xp builtin drivers, should I have
used other drivers perhaps? besides drivers, are there any other tools I
should be using for this printer? maybe toner level check utility?

regards

 

[tiktak]

forgot to ask, is there a way to get the pagecount on these? I tried looking
on test pages, but nothing is there.

also, I am curious if this is the 4L or anyother models like + or M. the
front sticker says 4L.

a good gracious lord! I just saw this thing was manufactured in 1993! is
this possible?!

thank you for the input.

 

[George E. Cawthon]

okay, I just bought a used hp laserjet 4L, brought it home. first few
powerups were paper jams, so I replaced the paper in tray and now seems okay
as far as paperjams, however, printing a few pages gives me lighter, much
lighter (or in econo mode, barely visible) print on the left handside of the
printout, for I'd say 1 inch of the print, top to bottom.

is this a sign the toner is running out? maybe cleaning? how do I check
toner left??? if not toner, how to resolve this problem?

by the way, I installed this printer with xp builtin drivers, should I have
used other drivers perhaps? besides drivers, are there any other tools I
should be using for this printer? maybe toner level check utility?

regards

Yes, the toner is running out, or it has merely
settled to one side. Remove the cartridge and
gently shake from side to side to get the toner to
level out. Then put it back in.

There is no paper count on a 4L, which was
marketed as an inexpensive (not by todays
standard)home product My 4L doesn't have a
sticker, the name is molded into the plastic right
above the paper tray. Mine has receives light
interspersed with some heavy use (e.g. printing
200-300 page drafts) and is still being used. The
4M and 4+ were for office use with larger memory
capacity.

The printer could easily be made in 1993. I
purchased mine in 1994 for $596 locally minus a
$50 rebate. Seems like a lot, but then my first
9 pin dot matrix (wide carriage) cost about $300
and I had to buy a $125 adapter to use it with my
Commodore 64. Times do change.

 

[Tony]

forgot to ask, is there a way to get the pagecount on these? I tried looking
on test pages, but nothing is there.

also, I am curious if this is the 4L or anyother models like + or M. the
front sticker says 4L.

a good gracious lord! I just saw this thing was manufactured in 1993! is
this possible?!

thank you for the input.

Yes, a very old printer they were available in 1993, the symptoms sound like
the toner is low, best to try that first.
The 4L does not retain page count after power off so there is no way to know
how many pages it has printed.
Tony

 

[tiktak]

Thank you George. and thank you Tony as well.

I also bought a hp laserjet 5L from same person today. have not tested it
yet. does that one allow pagecount review? if so, I hope its a simple
procedure.

I was basically sick and tired of my inkjets, I've been buying used inkjets
all my life, paying $10-20 each, refilling on my own etc. I Said enough is
enough. so a guy in my area (I'm in canada) was selling used, still printing
laser printers.. hp 4l, 5l and nec superscript 1400 (pagecounts here?).
picked them all up for around $120US for the lot. I just tried the 4l for
now. will wait for toner to run out then try the 5l. then the NEC. I
think the nec is fairly new, low pagecount... hope its a decent printer. I
think the 5l is also a major step forward from the 4l, but I don't know that
much about them.

at this point I don't even care if this was a decent deal or not, I'm just
glad to go laser way. now I have around 10 ink printrs I'll probably sell
in a lot and try to at least recover the $120US I just invested in lasers.


regards.

 

[Tony]

Sorry but the 4L,5L and 6L behave in the same way, no NVRAM so they lose their
pagecount at power off. There may be other HP's that do the same but only those
aimed at the lower end of the consumer market. They are all good printers with
only 2 bad habits.
1. The pick up rollers and separation pads wear (same really with all lasers)
but can be replaced cheaply with a bit of mechanical knowledge or in some cases
rejeuvenated with Isopropyl alcohol for a while. The symptoms are failure to
feed paper and/or feeding more than one page.
2. They sometimes experience failures that result in permanent patchy missing
or light print, this is an electronic failure (DC Controller PCA) that costs
more to replace than the printer is worth, don't worry too much since not all
of them have this problem but if you do see this it is worth being forewarned.
The problem you described does not sound like that because when it happens it
does not affect the whole length or width of the page.
Tony

 

[Davy]

One thing to note with new lasers is that for some reason the 'tone
unit' always seem to come 'half filled'. The 'El cheapo' Samsun
ML1510 I have was the same, it's a real work horse being the mai
text printer and used for printing PCB designs using 'toner transfe
paper', the stuff you iron on after printing

Although only £50 (UK) brand new and guaranteed it has had two tone
refill's to date costing about £12 for two bottles... l.o.l a ne
toner assembley is around £60 - more than the printer

Dav

 

[Alan]

forgot to ask, is there a way to get the pagecount on these? I tried looking
on test pages, but nothing is there.

also, I am curious if this is the 4L or anyother models like + or M. the
front sticker says 4L.

a good gracious lord! I just saw this thing was manufactured in 1993! is
this possible?!

thank you for the input.

I had a 4ML, bought as soon as it was out. It was the cheapest
PostScript printer available. It's the same engine as the 4L, with a
PS chip and an Apple interface as well as parallel.

I used it for 6 or 7 years and racked up about 35,000 pages (the $ML
does have a pagecount), still going when I left. It did get jams about
every 100 pages, but these were easily fixed by popping it open and
yanking out the page.

Have a look at TPW's info on HP printers for specs.
<http://www.printerworks.com/Printers/Laser-Printers.html>
the Ultimate Printer Manual
<http://www.nefec.org/UPM/>
the actual HP manual
<http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/reference/manuals>

 

[tiktak]

thanks.
shaking the toner side to side did and does seem to help. the print is much
more even now, though still little pale on the left side, but definitely
better than before.

so thank you to the person who suggested this.

but why exactly would a toner need shaking like this? is this something
that needs to be done time to time? or is it some defect in these
printers/toners specifically? I suppose if I shake it some more, it'll
eventually give perfect print throughout.

lastly, is there any way to check how much toner is left??? either with
software or by looking at toner directly? most inkjet printers show ink
levels with software.

regards.

 

[Tony]

Shaking the toner cartridge redistributes the toner in the cartridge and will
sometimes improve print quality.
This only has an effect if the the toner is getting low or has been stored
other than horizintally.
I do not believe there is a toner level indicator in the driver for this
printer or in the printer itself.
When the print quality starts to deteriorate again you will probabl;y need to
buy a replacement toner cartridge.
Tony