HP LaserJet 4L toner sticks to OPC

Damp paper ?, try drying some before using

Storage conditions? Must be DRY.

Clean the 3 contacts on the bottom of the toner and their mates in the printer. The printer contacts are spring loaded and should depress and release easily. Clean around the contact areas.

If that doesn't help, remove the metal ramp and transfer roller. Clean the roller and all the nooks and crannies under it.

This is all based on your statement that the image on the OPC was pristine and assumes the printer and paper are DRY, DRY, DRY. They won't be if you stored it in a damp place.

I can't come up with a way to get your linked picture when the OPC is clean. You've got background toner everywhere. That can't happen if your OPC is clean and the fuser is clean. From the picture, I'd guess that the wipers inside the toner are not working, but that would leave background toner on the OPC.

I just had a similar problem, but there was background toner on my OPC. First "new" 20-year-old toner cart was worse. Second one worked.

Classic malfunction of the 4 and 5 models, due to failed wiper blade (or at least, that's what it looks like in the pic.)

You can get a replacement wiper blade from eBay sellers, although most want to sell a 10-pack. You have to remove 2 pins from the ends of the cartridge to split the toner drum from the photoconductor drum. Remove two large pin- plates on ends of photoconductor drum (they are the axle) and remove the drum. Then, the wiper blade is held to the photoconductor side with 2 screws. First time will be a real hassle, then it is a 10 minute job next time. If you buy a NOS replacement cartridge, the wiper will fail within

4-5 pages, so you have to do this again, even on a "new" cartridge. But, other than this problem and a solenoid that has a soft stop when the armature releases that can go bad, this printer model is built like a tank.

Jon

Thanks for all the replies. The storage room is quite stable in humidity around 50% relative humidity. Here is the drum and paper after another stop-in-the-middle print test:

As you can see there is some background toner, that could be due to a faile d wiper blade, still the black text does not seem to transfer to the paper. The text "HP Explorer" and "Information" has already passed over the paper and most toner remains in the drum, so the text in the paper is almost ind istinguishable.

There may be two different problems, a failed wiper blade and something els e and I'm not sure if they are related. I would not mind some gray backgrou nd as long as the text was readable, so I am more interested in fixing the second problem than the first.

The printer and cartridge contacts are clean and all three posts in the pri nter have a working spring pushing them against the cartridge contacts.

Here is the drum and the paper:

OK, as some of the image seems to be from several revolutions of the drum past, that does seem to indicate the wiper blade is not working. There should only be ONE part of the image on the drum. The corona wire that charges the drum can only work properly on a CLEAN drum! So, once the drum has a whole bunch of toner all over it, it will not charge properly, and thus the opposite charge on the paper will not work as effectively to pull the toner OFF the drum onto the paper.

I have had VERY similar results, and replacing the wiper blade made the printer work like brand new.

Jon