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Can a Laser printer drum be cleaned?

Hello,
Here is the problem - We are getting a yellow smudge down the left side of every page we print. The drum for the yellow is especially encrusted with toner on the left side - the culprit I suppose. The Magenta has a string of toner encrusted on it as well. It's a new Brother Multifunction printer MFC-9970CDW. We returned one to Staples already as three or four of the drums were gummed up on it. Is it possible to clean these drums ourselves?

We did the simple routine slider swipe that is built in but that must be for dust. Sometimes we print 100 prints off at a time? Maybe the unit is getting too hot that this is happening? My thought is that for our purposes we are giving the printer a work out. We print two monthly bulletins (300 pages perhaps maximum). What do you advise?
Thank you

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John

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nobus

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hdhondt

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rjlillis

ASKER

Thank you. Every bit of knowledge helps. I am so glad for your service. Pertinent links are very helpful. I cleaned the printer. Although the toner come off smoothly with the cotton swab, the drum is marred underneath and collects toner easily again. There are plastic tabs that press on the drum for whatever reason and perhaps dispose the edges to heat up first and collect toner. We may send the printer in and figure out if we need one that can handle greater demands. If we distribute the printing tasks it could be fine. We were printing everything on two days really - what can we expect?

John

Thank you and I was happy to help. You probably can expect more of the same because you are expecting more of the printer than it can do,

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nobus

tx for feedback !

hdhondt

Thanks for the points, rjlillis.

It's usually best to buy a printer that is a bit "overengineered" for the task. Running a printer at its maximumratings is never a good idea - of course, we don't know how heavy a load you gave it. 2 bulletins of 300 pages each is nothing - but how many of those do you print, and how often?