HP Color LaserJet 1600, 2600, 2605, CM1015, CM1017 Paper Feed.
HP laser printers generally use a pickup and feed roller to push paper into the machine. This is often D
or half-moon shaped because it needs to push the paper a few centimetres to the registration point and then disengage. Larger printers often have several rollers - pickup and feed as separate components. The CLJ 2600 series have just one roller in the base of the printer and a separation pad in the cassette tray.
HP have been moving to make the rollers on big printers easily user changeable and sell kits with an instruction sheet for the job. One little printers like this their attitude seems ambiguous, changing the roller isn't difficult but it and the pad do involve a couple of screws.
Changing the roller is easy but not entirely obvious. Although the roller acts on the cassette tray it hangs down from the printer body above and is best accessed through the cartridge door. The magenta, cyan and possibly all four cartridges need to be removed. Two screws hold a black plastic piece called the pre-transfer guide in place on the top of the paper feed unit. The roller is on a shaft inside, held in a cradle by clips with an idle-roller either side .
Changing the roller is simply a matter of releasing it from it's cradle - it is held in by little clips on either side.
Rollers are made from soft rubber so that they engage and move the paper. Rollers usually last more than 30,000 pages. Suggested roller lives are often 50,000 pages or more; but paper type can have an impact and shorten the life.
Rollers are reaching the end of their life when the printer misfeeds for no other apparent reason. Paper is good, the page size is set correctly, tray guides are neither to tight or lose and the tray is not overfilled. There are lots of potential causes of paper misfeeds.
A bad paper roller usually looks worn. A good roller has a textured surface somewhat like the pattern on flesh. If the roller looks rather smooth then it can no longer pick up paper properly and will cause a worsening series of misfeeds. HP printers report this as Error 13
.
Paper feed rollers on the 2600 series only act on paper coming from the cassette. Paper coming through the bypass feed slot on the front goes straight into the registration rollers. If the printer will reliably feed from the bypass slot but not from the cassette that narrows the fault location down.
Parts are:
- Pickup roller RC1-5440 Tray 2/3 Paper Pickup Roller for HP 1600/2600/2605/CM1015MFP/CM1017MFP
- Separation Pad RM1-1922 Tray 2/3 Separation Pad Assembly for HP 1600/2600/2605/CM1015MFP/CM1017MFP
Roller Replacement Procedure
This is a brief guide to changing the roller. Some Pictures are from the HP Service Manual (which is fairly freely available on the Internet) but we have reduced and labeled them to make them easier to use on screen.
There are two approaches to changing the roller. The official
HP approach seems to be to go in through the cartridge door. It is also possible to roll the printer on its back and get the roller from underneath. The official way is covered first.
Pull the paper cassette right out of the machine. It pushes up against the roller and whichever approach you take to changing the roller is better out of the way.
Open the Cartridge door and remove all of the cartridges. Avoid touching the ETB
Unscrew the upper part of the paper feed, known as the pre-transfer guide. Lift the pre-transfer guide out.
The roller is soft rubber, at either side are small white plastic clips. When both clips are released the roller springs up slightly. Rotate it backwards a bit and it lifts out. Observe the locating pins on the old roller and put the new one in the same way round. Push it down a bit and the clips will engage.
To the left is another view of the roller location. The roller may need rotating by hand a bit to get at the clips.
The devices around the orange wire to the left are opto-detectors. In this LaserJet 2605 a remanufactured magenta had been used - as was clear from contamination in the printer. This sort of contamination can cause problems and when the roller is changed is a good time to tackle this. It is possible to shift light toner contamination with a clean paintbrush and a slightly damp tissue. Getting toner out of this kind of mechanism really needs a toner vacuum cleaner.
As well as the mechanisms in the paper feed assembly pay some attention to the other things in the cartridge housing. To the left in the picture (right in the printer) are the cartridge high voltage contacts. Toner does tend to build up round the metal surfaces and can cause print problems. At the rear of the printer are four laser windows, if there is toner on them it causes weak print.
Alternate Roller Replacement Procedure
An alternative and quicker way to change the roller is to take the cassette tray out and simply change it from underneath.
This is not recommended in the HP manuals, presumably because there is a risk of incautious users damaging the printer. Neither the metal back plate or the plastic panels making up the printer were intended to support its weight. If you handle it gently, they will do so however.
Taking the cartridges out and a quick clean round their enclosure is compulsory for doing this - otherwise toner powder could spread around inside. Re-close the door so that the transfer belt isn't vulnerable to damage.
The roller will almost certainly be in the wrong place but can be pushed round by the exposed cog.
It is very easy to access the roller clips and lift it out.
Changing the Separation Pad
It is generally recommended (in the HP service manuals for instance) that the separation pad be changed at the same time as the pickup roller.
Pads may or may not wear at the same rate but it's actually quite difficult to spot wear on the pad and if it is present then changing the roller won't entirely fix misfeed problems. As the name suggests the problem is usually double-feeds - two sheets of paper set off into the printer at once and usually come a cropper in the registration station in the lower part of the printer where they are quite difficult to get at.
Changing the pad is very easy. Simply pull the tray out - if you have been changing the roller it already is out. The pad is located at the front of the paper well. The pad comes on a plastic assembly held by two screws on either side, a replacement simply slides in.
