HP Original Toners
Maintenance Kit
Fuser
Spares
HP P4014 Series Main Motor RL1-1657.
RL1-1657 is the motor that drives the paper pickup and feed process.
A different motor is used in the LaserJet Enterprise 600 M601/2/3 printers - it is part number RM1-8285.
RL1-1657 is a fairly conventional brushless DC "outrunner" motor. It's the type seen on most copiers and laser printers - and usually made by Nidek, as in this case. The big external rotor holds the permanent magnet(s) whilst the coils are inside. Outrunner motors have a bit more torque at low speed which is just what is wanted turning rollers and drums - we want the motor accelerated to working speed almost immediately. A bit of electronics on the board senses the motor movement and controls it's speed.
The motor drives the paper pickup drive assembly. Exact timing of the cassette tray pickup seems to come from solenoid RK2-0270.
We don't see reports of these motors going wrong frequently. the motor isn't under much strain although if a tray is overfilled, or completely innapropriate media used, some stress could fall on the motor. Feed errors that seem to afflict both tray 1 and 2 might conceivably indicate the motor. DC brushless motors of this kind sometimes manage to burn out a coil driver in which case they might seem to function but be weak. This kind of motor has the driver chip built onto the motor circuit board and they have been known to blow their tops due to overload or overheating - which is self evident on visual examination. We have found few web reports of these motors going wrong.
The printer's diagnosticmode should help if the motor is suspect. It can be used to turn the motor on for about 10 seconds.
We'd certainly check the rollers RM1-0036, RM1-0037, paper lifter RM1-4585, Feed Assembly RM1-4532,and the solenoid RK2-0270 mentioned above before blaming the motor.
In principle these DC brushless motors can detect errors and the printer has a collection of error numbers to report them. Unfortunately printers with software versions earlier than 04.060.7 didn't report a motor error- they just sulked. One answer to this is to go to hp.com
and upgrade the software (with the usual caveat that upgraded printer software can sometimes kill the chip on refurbed cartridges).
The HP Service Manual doesn't give the list of motor error codes but Liberty Parts SE10 has an article New P4010/4510 Firmware Glitch Discovered
gives a list of them. (Its a PDF but you should be able to download it from the title).
They are:
- 59.00 Feed Motor - M101 - connector J91
- 59.20 Fuser Motor - M299 - connector J89
- 59.40 Drum Motor - M102 - connector J87
- 60.02 Tray 2 Lifter Motor
HP's Service manual says:
59.XY ERROR A temporary printing error occurred. For help press ?
alternates with 59.XY ERROR To continue turn off then on.
and Inspect the DC controller PCA and verify that the following connectors are firmly seated ... If the error persists, from the DIAGNOSTICS menu, run the component tests for each motor to verify that they are operating. If any of the motors is not operating, replace the motor.
That old faithful - try turning it off then on again!
HP Partsurfer says:
RL1-1657-000CN -Main drive motor (M101) - Drives the tray 1 pickup roller, tray 2 pickup roller, and feed roller.
andRL1-1657-020CN - Feed DC motor (M101) 24V - Drives the cassette pick-up roller, multi-purpose/tray 1 pickup roller, feed roller,and rollers for the input accessory
Partsurfer says the RL1-1657-020CN is used in the HP LaserJet Enterprise M4555 MFP Printer so perhaps the part was modified for that.
As usual with HP parts there is a potential choice of part numbers. There does seem to be at least one variant of the part number RL1-1657-020CN. (which implies there might be RL1-1657-010CN although there is no trace of it) Assuming it is also used as a Canon part they will call it RL1-1657-000 and HP call it RL1-1657-000CN which rather implies that HP do get it from Canon even though it is labelled Nidek. Icecat gives an EAN for the RL1-1657-020CN of 5711045250569.
These motors fit the P4014, P4015 and P4515 printers. We are fairly sure the RL1-1657-020CN HP Partsurfer says is used for M4555 printers is backward compatible - although at the time of writing it doesn't say so. Distributors tend to have the RL1-1657-020CN, and not its predecessor. As mentioned the LaserJet Enterprise 600 M601/2/3 takes a different motor - its a bit faster so presumably the designers upgraded the motor power a bit.
Supply Situation
A lot of people are offering these motors online (Google gave 25,900 results in July 2013) However we weren't able to find much information suggesting this motor fixes faults.
In July 2013 several UK distributors listed the motor at about £36 but did not have stock on hand. One distributor that also sells refurbished parts had 3 in stock - prices would be about £15 . These are guidelines, our prices change with distribution lists - see the catalog . Stock numbers indicate there is not much call for the part.
At present there is not much stock of these motors, but not much demand either so we would generally expect to be able to meet a spares requirement quickly.
Copyright G & J Huskinson & MindMachine Associates Ltd 2013, 2015, 2016. Some pictures derived from HP User and Service guides. These technical pages do not constitute an offer for sale; just our knowledge at the time of writing. See the catalog. Sales pages on this Web site use cookies to store user information. We also use Google Analytics to track site usage patterns.