What Is a Drum on an Hl-2070N Printer?
The Brother HL-2070N laser printer is a monochrome printer designed for home and small business users, and has a built-in Ethernet interface allowing any computer on the network to access the printer. The HL-2070N has a print speed up to 20 pages per minute, at a resolution of up to 2,400 x 600 dots per inch, and includes 16MB of on-board memory to speed up the printing of large documents.
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How Does a Laser Printer Work?
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Laser printers rely on static electricity, and the principle that objects that are oppositely charged attract one another. The heart of the laser printer is a light-sensitive cylinder called a drum, which has a photoconductive coating that discharges when hit by photons of light. A corona wire or charged roller first transfers a positive charge to the entire surface of the revolving drum. The printer controller then shines a laser beam across the drum, tracing out the images and characters that make up the document. When the photons from the laser beam hit the drum, the photoconductive coating causes the surface to discharge, leaving an electrostatic image of the document on the drum.
Transferring the Image to Paper
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Once an image of the document has transferred to the drum, the drum rotates past a toner hopper containing fine powder with a positive charge. The positively charged toner then sticks to the negatively charged areas of the drum hit by the laser. The drum then rotates over a sheet of paper, which receives a negative charge stronger than that of the drum. This charge pulls the toner powder from the drum onto the paper, transferring an exact copy of the image on the drum. The paper then passes through a series of heated rollers that melt the toner powder, fusing it to the paper. The drum then passes under discharge lamp, which discharges the whole drum erasing the image, ready to print the next document.
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Drum Life
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The drum is a consumable and has a limited lifespan, which depends on the frequency and type of documents printed. Towards the end of its life, print quality starts to deteriorate, with faded areas of print where the drum has not charged or discharged properly. The HL-2070N keeps track internally of the number of documents printed, and will alert you when the drum is near the end of its life by flashing the “Drum” LED on for two seconds, and then off for three, which repeats until you replace the drum.
Replacing the Drum
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Open the front flap on the printer to expose the drum unit and toner cartridge, and lift out the drum and toner cartridge assembly. Push the blue locking lever down, and then lift the toner cartridge out of the drum unit. Place the toner cartridge on a sheet of paper or similar, to stop toner staining the surface underneath. When ready to continue, unpack the new drum, which is light sensitive so ensure that you do not leave the drum outside the printer and exposed for any length of time. Insert the toner cartridge that you removed from the old drum unit into the new drum unit, and push firmly until the cartridge locks into place. Place the drum assembly back into the printer and with the front cover open press and hold the “Go” button until all the LED’s light. When lit, release the button to reset the drum counter and tell the printer it has a new drum unit. You can then close the front flap.
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