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Remanufacturing the Brother HL-2170W

• By Mike Josiah
• Apr 01, 2008

Released in January 2008, the Brother HL-2170W printer engine is based on a new 22-ppm, true 1,200-dpi laser engine. These machines have a first page out in less than 10 seconds, and come standard with 8MB, 16MB or 32MB of memory depending on the machine. The HL-2170W also is wireless capable. All machines come with a starter cartridge rated for 1,000 pages. The first section of this article covers the theory behind these cartridges. The first three paragraphs have some interesting information on the reset gears and how they work. The rest is standard Brother theory. If you are not familiar with Brother cartridges, it would be best to read through this entire section. It may save you a few very frustrating hours.

Current machines released so far are:

• HL-2140
• HL-2150N
• HL-2170W

There are two different yielding toner cartridges available for these machines, the TN-330 and TN-360 (TN-2110/2120 Europe, TN-2130/2150 Asia). The TN-330 cartridge is rated for 1,500 pages at 5 percent coverage; the TN-360 is rated for 2,600 pages at 5 percent. The drum unit is new as well with part no. DR-360 (DR-2125, DR-2100) and is rated for 12,000 pages. It will be covered in a future article.

There is a set of reset gears that reset the printer each time a new toner cartridge is installed. Previous Brother cartridges have used a reset gear before, but this is the first time a set of gears has been used. The starter cartridges that come with new printers do not have these gears. Both the TN-330 and TN-360 cartridges use different reset gears sets. The TN-330 gears, in addition to being a different color than the TN-360, have a shorter gear train. That is how the machine knows if there is a standard or high-yield cartridge installed. New rest gears are being developed.

An interesting point in the reset procedure is what happens in addition to the counter being reset. When the printer senses a new toner cartridge, the bias voltage is set to a high voltage. As the cartridge is used, the bias voltage is gradually reduced. This process is necessary because, according to Brother, a new toner cartridge has a tendency to print light. As the cartridge is used, the density increases. To keep the density level even throughout its life, the density bias voltage is reduced accordingly. Each time a new cartridge is installed, the bias voltage is reset to the high voltage point, and the cartridge page count is reset to zero. Since different yields would dictate different decreases in density over time, Brother uses different reset gears. This was also done in the TN-550/580, but after a time, Brother just went with the HY gear for both cartridges. Time will tell what they do with these cartridges.

Another interesting item of note is that these machines use a filter that seems to be located after the fan. The service manual doesn’t mention anything about it, and it’s not listed as a consumable. If you do repairs it’s something to keep an eye on as the machine gets older.

Basic Brother print theory

As with previous Brother cartridges, the waste toner is repelled out of the drum cartridge and picked up by the developer roller in the toner cartridge and brought back into supply chamber. That is why there will always be a good amount of toner left in the supply chamber when the cartridge is finished. This remaining toner must be completely removed from the supply chamber before adding new toner. Failure to do this will cause backgrounding. In addition to contaminating the toner cartridge, this will also contaminate the cleaning section of the drum cartridge, which in turn will contaminate the toner cartridge again. The reasons for this are explained in the following cartridge theory section.

The cleaning section of the drum cartridge consists of a "cleaning brush” and a recovery blade. The cleaning brush has two opposite charges placed on it during the print cycle. The first attracts any remaining toner off the drum. The second repels the toner off the brush back onto the drum where it then transfers back into the toner cartridge. This is all done in a timing sequence that does not interfere with the printing process. If the cleaning brush becomes contaminated with bad toner that will not accept a charge then the brush will be unable to clean itself and backgrounding will occur. It seems to be the nature of contaminated toner that it will accept most of the charge to be cleaned off the drum, but it will not accept the charge that would allow the brush to clean itself off at all. A properly working cleaning brush will at any given time have only a small amount of toner on it. Once contaminated, toner will accumulate, which will only cause the problems to worsen.

Since the waste toner is transferred back into the supply of the toner cartridge, once you print with a bad toner cartridge the drum unit will become contaminated. Even when you change out the toner with a good properly recycled or new OEM cartridge, the drum unit will transfer some of the bad toner back into the good toner cartridge, which will again cause backgrounding. Both cartridges will be contaminated again. It can be a vicious circle.

The remaining "toner” in the cartridge is just below the bare minimum that can maintain the proper charge level. When the change toner light comes on, the toner will not charge up to the proper level and will cause the backgrounding. As the toner cartridge reaches the end of its useful life, the printer senses the low charge level in the toner supply and will try to keep the charge level up. This constant charging keeps an almost "empty” cartridge from backgrounding. Once the printer fails to get the remaining toner up to the minimum charge, the change toner light comes on. The cartridge at this point will still be printing properly. If you were to take that same cartridge out of the machine for a few days and then put it back in the printer without doing anything to it, the cartridge will shade. This will happen because the charge level that the printer was trying so hard to keep up has dissipated out and the materials left can no longer accept a proper charge.

What does this all mean?

1) Make sure your cartridge technicians thoroughly clean out the supply chamber of the toner cartridge.

2) In the event that they forget and you have a shading cartridge, the toner must be completely cleaned out again. Do not use the toner over! New fresh toner must be installed.

3) The drum unit has to be taken apart and cleaned out with emphasis on the cleaning brush area. This is a very simple process but very necessary once it is contaminated.

According to our tests, there will be approximately 65 to 70 grams of toner left when the cartridge is spent.

How to run test pages, printer troubleshooting, common cartridge problems and how to read the cartridge serial number will be covered at the end of this article.

Remanufacturing instructions

1) Vacuum the exterior of the cartridge.

2) Remove the fill plug from the toner cartridge. Dump the remaining toner and vacuum or blow out the cartridge. Make sure the gear area is clean. Leaving any toner in the teeth of the gears may cause a tooth to be damaged and cause a clicking noise. We have found it best to use compressed air to clean them out, but to also keep one hand over the gears to protect them. See Figure 1.

3) On the non-gear side of the developer roller, remove the screw. See Figure 2.

4) Remove the drum axle plate by pressing on the two tabs as indicated, and pry the plate off. See Figure 3.

5) On the gear side, remove the three screws and cover plate. See Figure 4.

6) The reset gears are attached to the cover plate. These gears reset the printer when a new cartridge is installed. New starter cartridges do not have these gears. New replacement gears are being developed now but until they are available, the starter cartridges cannot be remanufactured. See Figure 5 and 6.

7) Remove the black plastic spacer from the developer roller shaft. See Figure 7.

8) Remove the e-ring and small gear. See Figure 8.

9) Remove all the remaining gears. See Figure 9.

10) On the gear side of the developer roller, press in on the locking tab and rotate the developer roller lockup. See Figures 10 and 11.

11) Remove the developer roller. See Figure 12.

12) Vacuum the doctor blade and foam feed roller clean. Until new blades are available, we do not recommend the doctor blade be removed or the developer roller felt seals disturbed. The doctor blade can be easily cleaned by blowing the excess toner off and wiping it down with a lint-free cloth. Be very careful not to leave any lint behind.

13) Inspect the magnetic roller felts. If they are compressed (shiny), rough them up with a small screwdriver. See Figure 13.

14) Clean the developer roller with a lint-free cloth. Do not use any chemicals other than a dedicated cleaner for Brother rollers to clean the roller. A dry clean cloth will work fine.

15) Reinstall the developer roller long shaft side to the gear side (with the white lock pointing up). Turn the lock toward the doctor blade until it locks in place. See Figures 14 and 15.

16) Install the small outside end plate and screw on the non-gear side. Make sure the clear plastic plug for the optical sensor is locked in the proper position. See Figures 16 and 17.

17) Clean the gears, making sure they have no toner on them. This is a good time to also check the gear shafts to make sure there is enough grease. If the shafts appear dry, or the grease is contaminated with toner, clean the shaft and inside of the gear. Replace the grease with white lithium grease. See Figure 18.

18) Install the developer roller gear, c-ring, black axle spacer, and the rest of the gears. Install the two large white gears last. Make sure all the gears are meshing properly. See Figures 19, 20 and 21.

19) Depending on the cartridge you have, set the two reset gears as shown. See Figures 22, 23 and 24 (left column) for the TN-330 and Figures 25, 26 and 27 for the TN-360.

20) Install the gear cover plate and three screws. See Figure 28.

21) Fill the cartridge with Brother 5200 black toner. See Figure 29.

22) Replace the fill plug. See Figure 30.

23) Wipe the cartridge down to remove any remaining toner dust.

24) Install the developer roller cover. See Figure 31.

Test pages

Press the "GO” button three times with the front cover closed and the ready light on. Depending on the machine, between one and four pages will print out.

Machine troubleshooting

The HL-2100 series of machines have four LEDs to indicate the status or various problems. We have listed some of the more common LED errors here:

• Toner light blinking, Status light on: Toner low
• Toner light on, Status light on: Toner out
• Drum light blinking: Drum life over soon
• Drum and Error lights blinking: Drum error
• Error light on: Paper out
• Error light blinking: Cover open, paper jam, memory full
• All four lights blinking: Call for service

Defect Chart

• OPC drum 75.0mm
• Upper fuser roller 78.5mm
• Lower pressure roller 78.5mm
• Developer roller 41.0mm

If you are experiencing horizontal black streaks, and changing cartridges does not help, look in the bottom of the paper tray. There is a small metal ground terminal. If it gets bent or dirty, it can cause this.

How to read the toner and drum cartridge serial numbers

All the Brother toner and drum cartridges in this series have unique serial numbers. The number contains information such as the month and year of manufacture as well as other manufacturing data. Here is the breakdown:

The first character is a letter and represents the month of manufacture. A is January, B is February and so on. The second character is a number and is the year of manufacture. 8 is 2008, etc. The third character is the manufacturing plant, and the fourth is the filling amount. The next six are the serial number and the last is the assembly line designation.

Mike Josiah is technical director at Summit Technologies, a division of UniNet Imaging Inc., a global distributor of toner, OPC drums, wiper blades and other supplies. Josiah has been with the company since 1987. He and his technical support team regularly contribute articles and teach seminars at association meetings and trade shows. Contact him at 631-218-8376 or mjosiah@uninetimaging.com.