Hi Folks,

Any printer experts here?

HP 3600 laser printer. I have tried changing the cartridges but the prints keep coming out very dark. good and bad examples below.

Anyone got any helpful suggestions which don't involve buying a new printer or asking HP to come out and fix it?


Description


Description

Thanks in advance

Cheers


Mark

Knackered drum ?

Drums only have a fixed life.

What is your paper type set to in the properties of the printer suspect the wrong paper type selected.

this could cause affects like this.

regards

Agriv8

Unless the prints have background/ dark foggy or black lines it is unlikely to be the drum/ developer cartridge. Useually all colour laser priters have a facility to do a auto gradation calibration. The machine will do one after so many prints and always at start up from cold or if the fixing unit is below about 100 degrees C or comming out of standby/ sleep mode.
Look through the menu on the machine for colour calibration or words to that effect and follow the instructions. It may print out some samples for you to check and input scale values to make it acceptable to the human eye.
If it has this feature you should always do it when the weather changes (dont laugh) OPC drums (organic photo conductor) are very sensitive to climate changes ie hot ,cold and humidity this affects the density of the developed image on the drum.
As said paper type can also make a difference. If using thick paper then the machine will increase the transfer bias (pulling more toner onto the paper and also increase the temp of the fixing unit making the toner particles blend more giving a darker glossier print.
Hope this helps.

Just printed out a Event log which contains a message " Media sensor out of range" I guess that this might have something to do with it as it kinda bears out what you guys are saying.

mmmm time to do more research