Question Cleaning laser printer fuser roller ?

[PuzzledToo]

Everything I’ve read says the heated fuser roller has a hard surface & the pressure roller is rubber. The lower roller on my Brother MFC -L2700DW is sort of brown colored & has a glossy look so I presumed it was the heated roller. And the upper roller looks like gray rubber so I figured it was the pressure roller.

The manual shows the upper roller as the heated one. I did not press on it to see it was rubber.

I’ve cleaned both rollers best possible with alcohol & a micro fiber cloth. But there are several black marks on the upper roller that won’t come off & I’m presuming they are responsible for some faint smudges on paper when printing.

Could the upper roller be a heated rubber one?
How do I remove the black marks without damaging the roller?
Thanks

 

[Ralston18]

Start here:

https://support.brother.com/g/b/manualtop.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfcl2700dw_us_eu_as

Troubleshooting and Maintenance:

https://support.brother.com/g/s/id/htmldoc/mfc/cv_dcpl2520dw/use/manual/index.html

NOTE:

https://support.brother.com/g/s/id/...GUID-A8AA3A79-F544-4195-BF93-8E534CD94B9E_528

From the preceding link:

• Use neutral detergents. Cleaning with volatile liquids such as thinner or benzine will damage the surface of the machine.
• DO NOT use cleaning materials that contain ammonia.
• DO NOT use isopropyl alcohol to remove dirt from the control panel. It may crack the panel.
• To avoid print quality problems, DO NOT touch the shaded parts shown in the illustrations.

You must follow the applicable manufacturer's instructions per the User Manuals, etc..

Failing to do so will likely void any warranties and/or damage the printer.

 

[PuzzledToo]

I've looked at the Brother User Guide & could not find anything about cleaning the fuser rollers. Apparently Brother doesn't want people going into the back of the machine to clean them.

I do have a Brother service manual I had downloaded long time ago. Using that along with some YouTube videos it turns out the upper roller is the heated fuser roller. One video shows how to clean the rollers, which is what I previously did when thinking the lower one was the heated one. It's difficult to see the upper roller in the video so it looks like they're cleaning the lower one. In reality you're cleaning both because the microfiber cloth comes in contact with both.

When I did the cleaning a few weeks ago the printer still left faint smudges on white paper. A few days ago I printed on a sheet of paper with a preprinted color border & it left a lot of smudges. So it was back to cleaning the fuser again. And it left faint smudges just like it did before. I thought about buying a new fuser roller but first fed 5 sheets of plain paper through the printer & that seemed to clean up the roller. Maybe running the sheets one after the other got the fuser temperature hot enough to get at least some of the offending toner melted off of it.

Here's the link to cleaning the fuser roller.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgMUFoznR5Y

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Those fuser rollers are not designed to be cleaned. They are part of the regular maintenance cycle and are replaced after the specified number of pages. This is all spelled out in the manual.

 

[PuzzledToo]

Those fuser rollers are not designed to be cleaned. They are part of the regular maintenance cycle and are replaced after the specified number of pages. This is all spelled out in the manual.

I understand. But what do you do if the fuser rollers get dirty before they are supposed to be replaced after the specified number of pages?

I could take the printer to a Brother service center & have them service the unit, whether that was a replacement or a cleaning of the rollers. But that would probably cost as much as buying a new printer. I'm presuming Brother would want me to spend money with them either way.

But what's the downside in trying to clean the rollers?

 

[ex_bubblehead]

I understand. But what do you do if the fuser rollers get dirty before they are supposed to be replaced after the specified number of pages?

If you are performing proper maintenance, in accordance with the manual, they won't need cleaning between replacements.

But what's the downside in trying to clean the rollers?

The downside is that you may well cause more problems. Leading to replacement of the rollers (and possibly other interior parts) due to a botched job (read extra $$ spent).