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Brother HL-1450 Laser Printer Maintenance

This article was written mainly because of the "grey page" problem, which can occur when printing FP10s with this printer. This occurs as the toner cartridge is running low. The official explanation (from Brother) is that the paper from FP10s is shedding fibres onto the toner drum. These then go back into the toner cartridge during use (with the excess toner that is recycled). After a while, the dirty paper fibres then are attracted to the drum during printing, causing the grey background effect.

Brother have modified the toner cartridges twice since discovering the problem and these newer cartridges print more pages before suffering the grey page problem. The first change was in March 2002 and the second was in April 2003. You can tell when your cartridge was made by looking for the code number printed on a white label on the front of it. The first digit is a letter and this corresponds to the month of manufacture (e.g. A=Jan, B=Feb etc.). The second digit is a number and corresponds to the year of manufacture (e.g. 2=2002, 3=2003 etc.).

Changing the toner cartridge and cleaning

First, open the front cover and remove the drum unit assembly. Caution - it may be hot, if recently used. Place the unit on a flat surface (preferably with tissue paper on it, because a fair amount of toner can sometimes come out). Push down the blue locking lever (on the right of the toner cartridge):

Pull the toner cartridge out of the drum unit and discard it.

Pick up the drum unit and gently knock it on the surface to try and dislodge as much loose toner as possible. Wipe away any obvious toner left, with a tissue.

Unpack the new toner cartridge and gently rock it from side to side 5 or 6 times, keeping it horizontal. Remove the protective yellow cover and insert the toner cartridge into the drum unit. It will click into place.

Clean the corona wire inside the drum unit by gently sliding the blue tab (on the top) backwards and forwards a few times:

Gently wipe the scanner window (a glass panel on the under surface of the output tray, inside the printer) with a clean tissue:

Wipe away any loose toner you can see inside the printer, below the scanner window. Wipe any rollers visible inside the printer too.

Insert the drum unit assembly back into the printer.

If this doesn't work, it is probably time to change the drum.

Further information is available from the Brother website. Click here for the FAQs for the HL-1450 printer:

Dr. Richard Parker

My thanks to all who contributed to the thread on the discussion list, which led to this article.

17/12/03.