[tlug] Cleaning a badly cleaned laser printer

[Darren Cook <darren@example.com>]

My laser printer (Brother HL-20) started getting inch-separated dots
about 2/3rd of the way across the page. I gave it a good dusting/blow,
but no help. So then I got a bit more serious, including wiping down the
orange roller-thingy with a slightly damp cloth, then drying it off with
a normal towel.

Now I still have the black dot, but also now ink is not sticking
properly to the right-half of the page. I.e. it smudges. (It gets better
if I leave for a while, but I just tested and even after 12hrs the
right-side can be smudged, while left-side is fine.)

So, I need to clean it again, but this time be more careful! A bit of
googling says I should be using alcohol, not water. I've also found up
some video tape cleaning fluid, which apparently is good.

General advice welcome, but specifically I found mention of this
HPPCLEAN.EXE utility:
  http://www.ehow.com/how_5162968_clean-hp-laserjet.html

Can just printing certain patterns really cure the problem? If so would
the patterns be specific to a printer maker/model, or is it more a
generic work-out, and I could use one by any manufacturer? (I've not
been able to track down anything specific to Brother HL-20.)
If so, any suggestions for a linux utility to do this? (I could try
wine, but I've never set up printing under wine, so I'm thinking that
could turn out to be a Huge Job...)

Thanks,
Darren




-- 
Darren Cook, Software Researcher/Developer

http://dcook.org/work/ (About me and my work)
http://dcook.org/blogs.html (My blogs and articles)