Brother Original Toners





Printhead



Brother MC-3000

The Brother MC-3000 was introduced in 1997. It's a colour inkjet based multifunction printer with a scanner and styledlike a fax machine.

The product was pitched against the HP OfficeJet Pro 1150C but gives slightly higher resolution and 4 separate cartridges instead of a black and tricolour.

Although there are lots of web-pages mentioning this printer they are mostly advertising cartridges. There seem to be few product brochures or any other support.

In practice there may be very few of these printers left. They do have the advantage of relatively cheap and simple cartridges but performance must be an issue for users.

Control:

Two line LCD display for messages and menu navigation and 5 LEDS - one for alarm and one for each colour cartridge to warn of low or empty conditions.

Duty Cycle:

Nothing said? Its an office quality inkjet but built for light duty.

SLOW ! Brother only claimed 3 pages per minute for monochrome and up to 2.5ppm for colour and in practice with a couple of pictures the printer slowed down to take several minutes per page.

Paper Handling:

A4 / Letter

Scanner Abilities:

24 bit colour scanner with a physical resolution on 400x400dpi software interpolated to 1200x1200 dpi. TWAIN compliant scanner. The scanner has a 30 page document feed capacity.

The scanner is notably slow

Copy Abilities:

Up to 99 copies at a time in draft mode. In 720 dpi mode just one copy.

Enlargement and reduction between 50% and 200%.

Copying a mono page takes about 30 seconds. Colour pages takes about 1 minute. Copying is faster than printing.

Fax Abilities:

The machine looks like a fax but isn't one. It uses the LC01x cartridge series also used in the MFC-700 MFC-7000 and MFC-7200C.

720 x 720 dpi. Still acceptable for general office work but likely to be a distinct disappointment where photographs are concerned. For 720 dpi work the printer probably needs inkjet photo paper.

In draft mode with copier paper the printer gives acceptable mono print.

There is a colour calibration utility to match screen colours to print.

Duplex:

No Auto-duplex available.

Processor:

No known

Memory:

4MB RAM - unusually large for the time.

Interface:

Parallel Interface for connection to a PC.

Network:

No built-in networking support. Many external printer drivers won't support the scanner.

Basically a GDI printer.

Supports US-ASCII print.

Under Linux apparently supports ESC/P with output at 360x180dpi. (openprinting.org)

System Compatability:

Primarily intended for MS-Windows 9x. Printer works at a crude level under Linux according to openprinting.org.

Power:

Not Known

Dimensions:

450 x 440 x 290mm closed but in use the document input tray and output tray protrude substantailly beyond this.

Weight:

Not Known

Consumables:

Inkjet with integrated printhead. Yield is around 300 pages at 5% cover

4 Inks in separate cartridges

LC01BK

LC01C

LC01M

LC01Y

The ink cartridges are small but they are cheap giving a price per page often said to be around £0.02. Many websites are offering "compatibles".

Whats-In-The-Box:

These printers are very old and only likely to be available on E-bay, from brokers and refurbisher. What you get is likely to be the basic printer - possible with compatible cartridges.

Originally they shipped with 4 inks,

Warranty:

Old printers all well beyond warranty

Spares:

These printers share(d) parts with the MFC760, MFC-7000 etc. In March 2010 there seemed to be no parts other than ink cartridges for these printers in UK distribution.

UF9192001 Printhead Carriage.

UF4366001 Separation Roller for Scanner

UF7015001 Separation Roller for Scanner

UF9021001 Lamp

UF9192001 Carriage Assembly (shown with belt in diagrams)

UD6014001 Encoder Strip

UD6015001 Carriage Motor

UF9103001 Paper Tray

UL6856000 Tray Extension

UF8048001 Document Support

UF9131001 Document Eject Tray Assembly

UF9260001 MP Tray Assembly

UF9036001 Paper Feed Roller Assembly

UF9151001 Pressure Roller Unit

UF9230001 Purge Unit

U38827001 Power Supply Unit

UD6645002 Main Logic Assembly

Maintenance Parts

ZA0310001 Head Cleaner Stick Assembly

ZA0315001 Head Nozzle Protector

ZA0316001 Head Filter Cover

ZA0311001 Primer Liquid Cartridge 9

ZA0312001 Primer Liquid Cartridge 18

ZA0305001 Dummy Cartridge 9

ZA0304001 Primer Liquid Assembly (ie a bottle of liquid and a syringe) Service:

It is doubtful whether anyone still offers service on these printers. Spares seem to be in short supply so its questionable whether the cost of a field service call would be justified.