'97 Laserjet 5

[weirdlookinguy]

My buddy at UCSD found a 1997 HP Laserjet 5 on a pallet of stuff ready to be thrown away. I've been wanting a laser printer for a long time and I have always liked these old HP tanks so I hauled ass over to La Jolla to pick it up.

It powers up and prints a test page, but it makes an accordion paper jam and the printout is faded and has 2" gray bands going through it. The toner cartridge in it is completely empty.

I know nothing about these old printers. If I put in a fresh toner and fix whatever is causing the paper jams, will I be left with a good printer or are those gray bands indicating that it needs a new fuser?

[toastygoodness]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

sounds like it jsut needs the new toner and the new rubber roller

[kikkoman]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

a new roller set can't hurt.
if you need a new fuser kit, it quickly gets expensive (to the point where a *new used* one is cheaper).
last year i kicked out my old LJ4 for that reason. got an A+ LJ2300d instead (duplex unit, woohoo) with toner for 35€ shipped.
one other issue with those old things (4 and 5 series) is that they don't have a proper standby mode (40-50W). they have a hard on/off switch though.

can you print out the diagnostics page? it tells you the page count which can tell a lot.

[stevo1210]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

I have one of them, a laserjet 5L... uh mine did the same thing on an empty toner. once i replaced the toner it didn't do the two streaks anymore.

[Krankshaft]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

Shake the cartridge and the streaks will go away for awhile it's low on toner. If it's been shaken too many times before it won't help.

As for the paper jams get a roller kit and replace everything in the kit. Paper pickup rollers, separation pads, the works. They usually include a transfer roller as well.

I've ordered from these guys before for my HP 1200s.

http://www.printerworks.com/Catalogs...RollerKit.html

That is all you need to give the printer a long deserved tune up. It's probably never had these components replaced and was run until the components wore out.

The heat of the fuser degrades the rubber rollers over time.

If the fuser is bad it usually wrinkles the paper. If the paper is bunching up just before the fuser look for a bad fuser drive gear.

Lasers are mostly trouble free the service manual usually dictates when to replace the feed path parts (based on a certain number of pages elapsed) to avoid the situation this printer is in.

They're mostly mechanical instruments gears, solenoids, clutches, and rollers. Not much to fixing them.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

Here is a pic of the printer and a picture of the demo page. I am heading over to Fry's to pick up a new toner cartridge right now. I'm going to have to get a remanufactured one because HP discontinued toner for these older LJs.

This thing is built like a tank and Made in Japan. I'm liking it so far.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

Pictures didn't upload for some reason.

Those black stains on the page didn't start appearing until I cleaned the roller on the cartridge itself, which makes me thing the cartridge is definitely fucked.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

Put the new toner in and this thing is printing beautiful. Makes inkjet printouts look like crap. I just need to order that roller replacement kit and she should be good to go!

[toastygoodness]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

nice! that is a beautiful printer

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

The diag page says that the page count is only 3k?? A 14-year-old printer from a major research university, it must have been reset at some point. It has 10MB of RAM which is pretty nice since according to wikipedia these shipped with only 2MB installed.

[b700029]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5


Here is a service manual for it. A disassembly and thorough cleaning would probably get it close to like-new condition.

[kc8adu]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

iirc the page count wraps at 100k.
+1 on the rebuild kit.cheap maintainence.i remember folks trying to clean/recondition the rollers.short term it works.long term its not worth it.

[dood]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

iirc the page count wraps at 100k.
+1 on the rebuild kit.cheap maintainence.i remember folks trying to clean/recondition the rollers.short term it works.long term its not worth it.

None of the 5's (or even 4's, for that matter) that I have rolled over at 100k. I've got an LJ5 in service with over 300k indicated

[Krankshaft]

Re: '97 Laserjet 5

Nice service manual post! Everyone one should have one for their printer for the preventative maintenance schedules.

Look at page 98 in the service manual the approximate life of the rubber feed path parts are 200k pages. From there on it lists how to replace them.

Unlike inkjets which are throwaway consumer items these parts were made to be replaced easily.

I agree 3k coming from it's environment doesn't sound right someone must have messed with the page count.

Be sure to wear rubber gloves when installing the new transfer roller or only hold it by the ends getting skin oil on it can cause print quality problems.