HP 2600n: Faded Prints and Laser Scanner Contamination

It is typical to attribute the faded or worn out printouts produced by color laser printers to a low or depleted toner supply. Now this can be easily resolved by replacing the toner cartridge or by replenishing the toner supply of the exhausted cartridge with compatible toner supplied by an HP toner refill kit. If upon ocular inspection, the cartridge still has sufficient toner and the magenta cartridge is likely causing the fading prints, then this could be a case of "laser scanner contamination."

This condition can easily be detected in the HP 2600n color laser printer because of its design alignment where toner cartridges are stacked one above the other. However, this is not a design flaw of the print engine. The magenta cartridge is positioned on the bottom part of the array and therefore has the tendency to absorb loose toner and dust the most; to contaminate the laser scanning assembly eventually.

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The print engine of the HP 2600n color laser printer comes designed not only with 4 toner cartridges but also with 4 OPC drums, 4 laser scanning assemblies; one each for the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black toner cartridges. It is only unfortunate that the design calls for the magenta cartridge at the tail end of the cartridge array.

Over time, loose toner powder and dust collects on magenta cartridge components coating the sensitive laser and rotating reflective mirrors or lenses which consequently reduces its capability to accurately emit required light pulses on the OPC drum to form the latent image.

Failure of the laser scanning assembly results in faded or worn out color prints. Maintenance of the laser scanning assembly does not form part of the HP 2600n printer's internal cleaning features. Therefore, only manual troubleshooting will do the trick. The task of cleaning the laser scanning reflective mirror and lens is a simple matter, particularly with the printer service manual around. However, the location of this component inside the printer could not be easily reached and in fact entails dismantling the printer. For the beginner, that would take a couple of hours to complete the job.

The task is therefore best left to printer technicians to do justice on the cleaning of the laser scanning assembly.

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