Instructor: In this lesson,
we are going to talk about print quality issues.
This includes things like faded printouts,
blank pages, white stripes, black stripes
or even the whole page being black,
speckling on your output,
vertical or horizontal lines on your output,
toner not being fused to the paper,
double or echo images, incorrect chroma display,
and color missing from your printouts.
So when we talk about print quality issues,
it really is anything that leads to some kind of a printout
that's not what you're expecting.
This can be printouts that are smudged, faded,
or they have unusual spots or lines
going through those printouts.
All of these are considered print quality defects,
or print quality issues,
that you want to be able to solve as a technician.
Now normally these issues are going to be tied
to the printer's hardware itself
and not necessarily the driver or the software
that's running that particular printer.
Now, the first type of defect we're going to cover
is a faded print.
This happens anytime you get a piece of paper as your output
that looks washed out or faded because it doesn't seem
to have enough ink or toner in that particular printout.
Now this can happen for a lot of reasons,
including if somebody has set their software
to use draft output mode instead of using
a final quality output mode.
When you use draft output mode, this uses less ink and toner
and therefore it's more economical,
but the finished printout does look
a little bit more washed out or lighter in color
than it really should.
Now, the other common issue that will cause a faded printout
is when you simply are running out of ink
inside of an ink jet or impact printer
or you're running out of toner inside of a laser printer.
In either these cases,
you simply need to replace the cartridge,
whether that's the ink cartridge
or the toner cartridge for your particular model of printer,
and that should restore the printout
to the full and defined output that you're expecting to have
instead of the faded printout that you're receiving.
Now, the next defect we're going to talk about
is what happens when you get a blank page.
Now, a blank page is normally going to be an issue
caused by a software issue.
This means that this computer is telling the printer
to print out a blank page
instead of printing out actual documentation.
Now, if it's not a software or driver problem,
it could be that somebody actually messed up
when they replace the ink or toner cartridge in the printer.
When you get a new ink or toner cartridge,
there's usually a little piece of tape
over the end of that device,
and when you try to put it into your printer
you need to take that piece of tape off first
to allow the ink or the toner to have a path
from that cartridge into your printer.
If you forget to take off that little piece of tape,
this means that when it tries to print,
the printer can realize that it has toner or ink
because it recognizes that a new cartridge is put in,
but when it tries to print, nothing is coming out,
and so you're going to get a blank page
coming out of the printer.
Now the next print defect we have occurs when
you start getting white stripes across your pages.
Now this is really common with laser printers,
especially if you have an issue
with your toner cartridge or your drum.
For example, if you have some kind of dirt on your drum,
it's going to prevent that drum from getting toner
to be attracted to it when it's being charged.
In this case, when the printer then tries
to print out a page, everywhere the dirt was on that drum
will now show up as a white line as it's trying
to transfer toner from the drum onto the page.
In addition to this, you can also have this issue
if the toner cartridge
has poorly distributed toner inside of it.
To be able to fix this, as the toner is getting low,
you could take the toner out, gently rock it side to side,
and this will evenly distribute that fine powder or toner
across the entire toner cartridge,
allowing it to print across the entire page.
Again, if you're getting something
that is a uniform white stripe going down the page,
it normally indicates there's a problem with the drum
and you can replace that using your maintenance kit.
The next issue we have when we come to printer defects
is black stripes or whole pages that come out black.
Now, unlike the white stripes, when you have a black stripe,
this indicates that the primary charge roller
is dirty or damaged, or the high voltage power supply
that is going to the developer unit is malfunctioning.
Instead of attracting toner only to the parts of the drum
that you're supposed to, you're actually attracting it
to the entire drum,
and that means you have some sort of an issue
with that high voltage corona wire
and you need to troubleshoot it.
In order to fix an issue where you're getting
black stripes or an entire black page,
you do want to troubleshoot the corona wire
or try replacing the drum and toner cartridge
using parts from your maintenance kit,
as this will usually solve your issue.
The next issue you're going to have
is when you have speckling on the output.
Now this can happen anytime you have loose toner
that starts getting onto the paper,
and then when the heat is applied to that piece of paper,
that toner is then melted onto the paper
in this random pattern.
Anytime you start getting random dots or speckles
across your paper and you're using a laser printer,
this means you probably have some loose toner
inside of the system.
To be able to fix this,
you want to clean the inside of the printer using an
approved toner vacuum to suck out any of that excess toner
and prevent it from getting onto your pages
as they're moving through the printer pad.
Additionally, you'll want to make sure you clean out
the entire printer pad and verify
there's no excess or loose toner in that area as well.
The next defect we have
involves vertical or horizontal lines.
Now, the big thing here when you're dealing
with vertical or horizontal lines
is the fact that you're having these uniform lines happening
in the same place every single time.
This type of repetitive defect usually tells you
that there is something in common
with all of those printouts,
and in this case,
usually when you find a vertical or horizontal line,
it's due to dirty feed rollers.
This means as the paper is rolling
through that laser printer,
it's getting this uniform mark placed against the paper
and sealed into it with the fuser assembly.
Remember, inside your toner cartridge and fuser unit
there are rollers inside of there too,
and if those get damaged or dirty,
this can cause this type of a problem for you.
In addition to that,
a dirty photosensitive drum can also create
vertical or horizontal lines for you.
So if you're seeing this, you want to check all your rollers
and replace your drum using one from your maintenance kit.
The next issue we have
is when toner doesn't fuse to the paper.
If you take a piece of paper
that just came out of a laser printer,
it should feel warm to your touch.
In addition to that, if you rub the words on the page,
they shouldn't move at all, but if they do
and they start smudging, that means the toner
is not being properly fused to that paper.
Remember, as the toner gets applied to that paper,
it has to be fused using the heat from the fuser.
If that fuser is not putting out adequate heat,
the toner will not properly melt to that paper
and therefore you're going to have smudging that occurs.
When this happens,
you need to check the voltage of that fuser
and make sure it's getting the proper input voltage
and that it's putting the proper output voltage
in the form of heat to that fuser assembly
to be able to melt the plastic inside of that toner
onto the paper, creating the final copy.
The next printer defect you're going to come across
is what's known as a double or echo image.
I like to call this the ghosting effect.
Anytime you start printing out a page and you start seeing
the remnants of another page on that page,
this is what I'm talking about.
It's this ghosting or double effect.
Now this happens because the drum inside of a laser printer
is not usually the entire size of a sheet of paper.
So each part of the paper is actually being printed
using part of the drum, and usually it'll take
two to three rolls around that drum to get the entire page.
Now, while this is happening,
in between each of those portions,
the drum has to be cleared off of any excess toner,
and if that doesn't happen you can get this ghosting
that happens on these images.
Anytime you start seeing a double, an echo,
a ghost or a shadow image,
this usually indicates that this is an issue with the drum.
Now remember, in a lot of printers,
the drum is located inside the toner cartridge,
so if you simply replace the toner cartridge,
that includes the drum, this will solve this issue.
If you're using a laser printer
that has a separate drum unit, you'll want to replace
that drum using parts from your maintenance kit.
The next printer defect we have is known as
the incorrect chroma display,
and this happens whenever the printer
is actually using the wrong colors.
For example, maybe I was trying to print something
that should have been blue
and instead it came out as yellow.
Now why is that?
Well, a lot of times it's because somebody messed up
and put the wrong toner cartridge
or the wrong ink cartridge into the wrong slot.
When you're using a color laser printer,
normally there are going to be four different cartridges,
each one containing different colors of toner.
This includes black, cyan, magenta, and yellow.
So if the technician accidentally put
the cyan in the magenta and the magenta in the cyan,
your colors are going to come out backwards.
Similarly, in most modern ink jet printers,
you will have four cartridges or four different ink colors
for that particular printer
to be able to create the image you want.
And if you insert the ink cartridges in the wrong order,
you're going to get the incorrect colors on your printout.
Thankfully, this is a really easy problem to solve.
You simply take out the cartridges
and put them back in in the correct order
and this will solve the printer output issue.
Now, if you look at your cartridges
and they are in the right order, what might be the issue?
Well, in this case, it's most likely going to be
a software or printer driver issue
because the operating system is telling the printer
to print the wrong colors.
In that case, you're going to want to make sure
you have the proper driver loaded
for your particular model of printer
and for the proper operating system that you're using.
The next defect we have is not
when the colors are in the incorrect order,
but instead when the color is missing completely.
Normally this is going to be an issue
where the ink cartridge has dried out
or the toner has run out.
In either these cases,
simply replace the toner or ink cartridge with a new one,
and this should solve the issue.
Alternatively, if you see that that ink or toner cartridge
still has a lot of ink or toner inside of it,
but the colors are still coming out missing,
this could be a clog in the output of that cartridge.
In this case, you'll want to use some rubbing alcohol
to clean the contacts between the printer and the cartridge
to ensure it's flowing out properly.
Now the last two defects I want to talk about
are specific to specific types of printers.
The first one has to do with an inkjet printer.
Now, if you start seeing white lines
going through your printouts, this normally indicates
that one of the jets inside of your print head
is dirty and blocked and you need to run the cleaning cycle.
This usually occurs because there are multiple jets
that the ink jet is going to be using to spray out the ink.
And so if you're seeing a consistent white line
in several places on the page, it normally indicates
that there is a blocked or clogged ink jet nozzle
that needs to be cleaned.
The final defects we're going to cover
have to do with impact printers,
also known as dot matrix printers.
Now, when you're dealing with dot matrix or impact printer,
there's a couple of key issues that you may come across
that only affect this type of printing.
The first is when you're missing
some dots inside of your images.
Now, in a dot matrix printer,
the image is made up using a series of small dots.
Over time, those dots can actually become worn down
if they're in a place that's used often
because they're impacting every time they're printing.
Over time, this can lead to one of the pins
becoming shorter than all the others,
and in this case you're going to start seeing a hole
or a dot inside the final output
because you're not being able to get that printer ink
onto the page in that particular spot.
If this occurs, the only solution
is to replace the print head and this will replace
all of the dots inside of that print head with new ones
that are no longer worn down,
and they can start printing properly.
The other issue you'll find
with a dot matrix or impact printer
is when the printout seems to be faded.
Now, this can be because the ink is running out
on that particular ribbon,
in which case you'll want to replace the ribbon,
or it could be that there's a gap
between the print head and the paper,
and that gap is too much
for the print head to be able to accommodate.
Now, in an impact printer,
there is a part called the platen,
and the platen is what adjusts the gap
between the paper and the print head
to accommodate different sizes of paper.
So if I'm using a thicker weight of paper,
that platen is actually going to increase the gap
so that that paper can properly be fed in
and be hit by that print head.
Alternatively, if I'm using a very thin weight paper,
it's actually going to close that gap
and bring the print head much closer.
But if the platen doesn't do its job properly
and it has a larger gap expecting that it has thicker paper,
but you're using thinner paper,
that's actually keeping the print head
further away from the paper,
and therefore when it's trying to make the image,
it's going to come out faded
because you're not getting that really hard press
going through the ink and onto the paper
because there's too big of a gap.
Like I said, these are issues that are specific
just to a dot matrix or impact printer,
and it won't really affect you
inside of an ink jet or laser printer
because they are not dealing with a direct impact
from the ink ribbon onto the page by these series of dots.