- [Instructor] Troubleshooting Common Printer Issues Part 1.
Here we have that diagram that we showed previously
of the laser printer and all the parts involved with it.
It's a good idea to know all these components.
And also, remember your printing process,
that laser printing process that we talked about.
You wanna apply those steps within the process
and everything that you see here in this image
when you troubleshoot laser printers.
And the focus of what we're gonna do here is laser printers,
but some of what we talk about
can be applied to other printers as well.
But again, we're gonna focus on the laser printer.
That's the most important for the exam
and for working in the field.
So the first issue, paper jams or creased paper.
How many times have you seen this problem
where paper gets jammed up in a variety of places?
Well, here's what you do to fix it.
First of all, you turn the printer on and off
in the hopes that the printer will clear the jam by itself.
And that's known as power cycling the printer.
If that doesn't work,
you'll have to open the printer and move on to step two.
Make sure you turn the printer off
and unplug it before you do open it.
So step two, remove paper trays
and inspect them for crumpled papers.
And if you find any, those could be removed
by grabbing both ends of the paper firmly
and pulling it or rotating the rollers to remove it.
In general, you're trying to clear the paper path.
But if you just grab with one hand,
you'll probably just rip the paper,
so you wanna grab with two hands firmly on both ends.
Then verify that the right paper type is in the printer.
If the paper's too thin or too thick,
it could cause a paper jam.
Also, watch out for paper that has been exposed to humidity.
If it was stored in the basement or something like that,
the humidity could cause it
to have a problem entering the printer.
The rollers might have a problem grabbing it,
or it might grab too much paper.
Next, check for dirty or cracked rollers.
Those rubber entrance rollers and exit rollers,
they only last so long.
A temporary fix is to clean those.
And a lot of the maintenance kits for printers
will have a special cleaner for those rubber rollers.
And if you're in a fix, if you're in a bind, I should say,
a temporary fix is to use isopropyl alcohol.
You know, that 50/50 mix that we talked about,
the alcohol and water.
And, of course, a permanent fix
would be to replace those rollers.
And that's part of the maintenance kit
for most laser printers.
Next, check whether the fusing assembly has overheated.
Sometimes the printer just needs time to cool,
or perhaps the printer is not in a well-ventilated area.
And in some cases, the fuser might need to be replaced,
or the fusing rollers might have grabbed the paper.
So there's a lot of possibilities there.
And the fusing assembly
can usually be removed with a couple screws.
You can get rid of that entire assembly if need be.
And finally, check the entire paper path.
A duplexing printer, one that prints on both sides,
will have more complicated and longer paper paths,
and that means more chances for the paper to get jammed.
If you're dealing with any copying machines,
you can open up the entire side of the printer,
and you'll find that the paper
could get jammed up in a dozen different places.
So there's some ways
to troubleshoot paper jams or creased paper issues.
Next is if the printer prints out blank pages.
If you get blank pages, you don't want this.
And, you know, you're gonna be looking at this image here.
You're gonna be looking at what's happening here
and pay attention to that printing process once again.
Now, first of all, the toner cartridge is empty,
or maybe it failed.
That's one of the possibilities.
So install a new toner cartridge.
And toner cartridge failures
could be associated with the developing
and the transferring steps of the laser printing process,
and the developing stage as being the most common.
In most cases,
you're just gonna replace that entire toner cartridge.
Now, sometimes you'll see
that the toner cartridge was installed,
and the ceiling tape wasn't removed.
There's that tape that you have to pull out of it.
So sometimes you'll get that also,
and the printer will just print out blank pages,
or the pages will get jammed up
because that tape is in the way.
And finally, it's possible
that the transfer corona wire here has failed.
And if that happens, it won't pull the toner
from the print drum down onto the paper.
You remember that opposites attracted portion
of the transfer stage.
So if the transfer corona wire fails,
there will be no positive voltage.
It won't have that opposite voltage
to pull that toner onto the paper.
You'll have to replace that transfer corona wire.
Or if it's integrated to the toner cartridge,
you're just removing the toner cartridge and replacing that.
Next is, multiple pages are fed in at once.
Well, that could be an issue also.
And first thing you wanna do is check
whether the separation pad is getting enough traction.
And there are these separation pads
near the entrance rollers
where the paper enters the printer.
And it might need to be cleaned or adjusted.
Some of them have a little screw that can be adjusted.
And there's a little spring. They're spring-loaded.
Also, you wanna check...
You wanna check whether the paper is too thin.
20-pound paper is usually recommended.
But you might need more for your printer,
or you might need more for how this is adjusted,
how the separation pad is adjusted.
And you can replace the separation pads if you need to.
Those are usually part of a maintenance kit
for a laser printer.
So there's a couple of the common printer issues.
And I'm breaking this down,
this whole lesson down into four parts
so you can absorb it a little better.
Those first three, those are real important.
You can pretty much bet you'll see questions on that
on the exam or questions on the interview.
So understand how the printing process works
and understand all the components involved
in the laser printer.