Leaky toner in laser printer

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
I've owned an Okidata C3400n printer since 2009 and it's one of the best investments I've ever made.

Anyway. I really don't use it much (probably print a couple of pages in it every two weeks) and I haven't needed to replace its ink cartridges until recently. But I had to replace them not because they ran out of toner, but because they began to leak toner onto the printed pages. Periodical faint smudges began to appear on the sheets while printing.
First one color started doing this (black) and then a few weeks after that the red one did the same... eventually I had to replace all of them. And I had to buy the entire toner cartridge for each, drum and all.

Anyone knows why this happened? Do toner cartridges and their drums have an expiration date?
I've read that the drums are sensitive to light, and if that is so, then they must degrade over time, regardless if they've been exposed to light or not. Would it have anything to do with that?
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
Did the new toner cartridges fix the problem?

If not I would guess that the fuser is not working up to snuff.
Yeap... it fixed the problem immediately. The leaks were happening even on pages being printed that did not use the color being liked. For example, a simple text page printed using only black toner would have smudges of yellow toner on it.
 

tjohnson

Joined Dec 23, 2014
611
A quick Google search showed http://www.cartridgeworldpasadena.com/tips-tricks-1/help-my-toner-is-leaking, which says that the cartridge may not be the cause. It can be that "a small piece of paper is stuck between the drum and the retaining blade," which may not be "obviously visible." I don't know if this could have caused your problem or not.

Edit: I just realized I had made a silly mistake by googling the phrase "leaky toner in lazy printer".:D
 
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Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
A quick Google search showed http://www.cartridgeworldpasadena.com/tips-tricks-1/help-my-toner-is-leaking, which says that the cartridge may not be the cause. It can be that "a small piece of paper is stuck between the drum and the retaining blade," which may not be "obviously visible." I don't know if this could have caused your problem or not.

Edit: I just realized I had made a silly mistake by googling the phrase "leaky toner in lazy printer".:D
Wish I had considered that before buying all four cartridges and throwing away the old ones... Thanks!
 

tjohnson

Joined Dec 23, 2014
611
Wish I had considered that before buying all four cartridges and throwing away the old ones... Thanks!
De nada. As WBahn says, live and learn.

BTW, Google can be an extremely useful resource. Several times I've been able to provide a meaningful reply to a post on AAC about a subject that I was unfamiliar with before (such as this one) just by googling the thread title or some related words and skimming the first few results.
 
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Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
De nada. As WBahn says, live and learn.

BTW, Google can be an extremely useful resource. Several times I've been able to provide a meaningful reply to a post on AAC about a subject that I was unfamiliar with before (such as this one) just by googling the thread title or some related words and skimming the first few results.
Yup... Google can be a marvel... when you use the correct keywords to do your search... in my case, being bilingual, it's both a blessing and a curse... I usually find things most other people can't, but sometimes have a harder time finding things that would be easy to find to your average Joe... language (and a good vocabulary) is everything
 
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