Re: [GTALUG] war story: Brother printer won't turn on

[Kevin Cozens via talk]

On 2024-01-20 11:34, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

I've found Brother laser printers to be fairly reliable, especially
considering how complex and mechanical they are.  I don't buy other brands
so I cannot compare them.


Some years back (don't remember how long ago) I bought a Samsung wireless 
laser printer. IIRC, I needed a new cartridge for the old (HP?) laser 
printer and the cost of it was more than for a new printer. I chose the 
Samsung because it had the lowest cost on replacement toner cartridges vs 
other printers available at the time.


After quite a few years of faithful service I went to turn it on one day and 
it just flashed an orange light at me. An Internet search said a capacitor 
on one of the circuit boards located on the side of the machine needed to be 
replaced.


It wasn't easy removing the side panel of the printer. Once I got it off I 
immediately saw the bad capacitor just as in the photos shown in the web 
page that showed what I should expect to find. I pulled out the circuit 
board with the bad cap, desoldered the bad one, and put a new in. After 
putting everything back together again the printer is working fine once again.


One more bit of electronics gear brought back to life instead of going to 
e-waste.


--
Cheers!

Kevin.

https://www.patreon.com/KevinCozens | "Nerds make the shiny things that
| distract the mouth-breathers, and
Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172  | that's why we're powerful"
#include  | --Chris Hardwick

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Re: [GTALUG] war story: Brother printer won't turn on

[Don Tai via talk]

yes, I am old, but my next generation both know how to solder and how to
sew. My daughter has both a sewing machine and a serger. She has become the
"Go to" person in her circle to repair a treasured possession instead of
the pitch and repurchase cycle. When you have little money, maintenance
becomes more important. My son learned to solder at the age of 5.

We've had a great run of economics these last 15 years, but this will not
last. The nextgen will need to work harder than the Boomers.

On Sat, 20 Jan 2024 at 14:10, o1bigtenor  wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 20, 2024 at 11:26 AM Don Tai via talk  wrote:
> >
> > "I'd like to say that soldering is a basic life-skill, but it isn't. " I
> think it is.
> >
> > If you do any kind of electronics repair or hacking, then you must know
> how to solder. It isn't difficult. You just need practice. Tutorials abound
> on YT. Knowing how to use a multimeter is also an essential life skill.
> Without these fundamental skills you must trash equipment that somehow went
> awry and buy another one. This is similar to mending your clothing. You can
> just pitch the clothing and buy new, or buy better quality and learn to
> mend what you have. The choice is yours.
> >
> > With the quality of product dropping as time passes, there is more of a
> need to repair older but better quality products (computer tech excluded)
> than to simply buy new. Learn how to solder and sew yourself, find someone
> that knows, or pay someone to do it for you.
> >
>
> Hm - - - - you pretty much  put your age in neon with a comment
> like that - - - lol.
> Not that I disagree in fact.
>
> The ethos has evolved to where from about 15 to 20 years ago it is now
> considered
> ethically imperative to discard and buy new on a very very regular basis.
> Someone has to be spending money quite regularly to make all those nice
> salaries
> that mid and upper management from most large companiesand the increase the
> wealth of the financial elite. Heaven forfend if the financial elite's
> net worth isn't increasing
> by at least 15% per annum!
>
> HTH
> (tongue firmly in cheek)
>
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Re: [GTALUG] war story: Brother printer won't turn on

[o1bigtenor via talk]

On Sat, Jan 20, 2024 at 11:26 AM Don Tai via talk  wrote:
>
> "I'd like to say that soldering is a basic life-skill, but it isn't. " I 
> think it is.
>
> If you do any kind of electronics repair or hacking, then you must know how 
> to solder. It isn't difficult. You just need practice. Tutorials abound on 
> YT. Knowing how to use a multimeter is also an essential life skill. Without 
> these fundamental skills you must trash equipment that somehow went awry and 
> buy another one. This is similar to mending your clothing. You can just pitch 
> the clothing and buy new, or buy better quality and learn to mend what you 
> have. The choice is yours.
>
> With the quality of product dropping as time passes, there is more of a need 
> to repair older but better quality products (computer tech excluded) than to 
> simply buy new. Learn how to solder and sew yourself, find someone that 
> knows, or pay someone to do it for you.
>

Hm - - - - you pretty much  put your age in neon with a comment
like that - - - lol.
Not that I disagree in fact.

The ethos has evolved to where from about 15 to 20 years ago it is now
considered
ethically imperative to discard and buy new on a very very regular basis.
Someone has to be spending money quite regularly to make all those nice salaries
that mid and upper management from most large companiesand the increase the
wealth of the financial elite. Heaven forfend if the financial elite's
net worth isn't increasing
by at least 15% per annum!

HTH
(tongue firmly in cheek)
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Re: [GTALUG] war story: Brother printer won't turn on

[Don Tai via talk]

"I'd like to say that soldering is a basic life-skill, but it isn't. " I
think it is.

If you do any kind of electronics repair or hacking, then you must know how
to solder. It isn't difficult. You just need practice. Tutorials abound
on YT. Knowing how to use a multimeter is also an essential life skill.
Without these fundamental skills you must trash equipment that somehow went
awry and buy another one. This is similar to mending your clothing. You can
just pitch the clothing and buy new, or buy better quality and learn to
mend what you have. The choice is yours.

With the quality of product dropping as time passes, there is more of a
need to repair older but better quality products (computer tech excluded)
than to simply buy new. Learn how to solder and sew yourself, find someone
that knows, or pay someone to do it for you.

On Sat, 20 Jan 2024 at 11:51, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk 
wrote:

> | From: Evan Leibovitch via talk 
>
> | I've had a CDP-L2520DW for at least a decade.
> | Touch wood, no problems like this.
>
> I've found Brother laser printers to be fairly reliable, especially
> considering how complex and mechanical they are.  I don't buy other brands
> so I cannot compare them.
>
> I've bought several refurb Brothers from their web site.  Since the
> pandemic, the prices seem to be way higher.
>
> Brother seems to allow clone toners. That's good.
>
> Brother's say that the toner cartridge is empty a bit prematurely.
> Luckily there are sequences of key presses that override this.
>
> | FWIW, I've found Brother tech support to be quite helpful
>
> Good to know.  I've rarely found any tech support useful so I try them
> last.  Google is much better.  I wonder if chatGPT would be better still.
>
> |  While I have no
> | idea where she was located, she did know her stuff.
>
> I always ask CSRs "what City are you in" as a kind of stamp collecting.  I
> do it at the end because it isn't important and I don't want to throw the
> conversation off.
>
> | For those of us not intrepid enough, or lacking confidence in keeping a
> | soldering gun steady -- I wonder if Brother might make available a
> | replacement circuit board.
> | More expensive than buying a single capacitor but less than replacing
> what
> | has otherwise been a pretty good unit (from a company that has supported
> | Linux very well).
>
> I'd like to say that soldering is a basic life-skill, but it isn't. One
> could try Dropping in on the Hacklab open house (Tuesdays starting at
> 18:00)? 
>
> Ohh: I thought that the Repair Cafe had died but I'm wrong:
> 
>
> The repair is pretty easy if you've done any soldering.  I solder about
> twice a decade, so I'm not very good at it.
>
> I don't know what soldering guns are good for.  Probably not electronics.
> I use a cheap soldering iron I bought three to five decades ago.
> Probably from Radio Shack.  For electronics work, you want a low power and
> small iron.
>
> The latest cool cheap soldering iron is the PINECIL V2.  It has a RISC-V
> processor and open source software.  Why, I don't know.  I'd have bought
> one but the shipping doubles the price and irks me.
> 
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Re: [GTALUG] war story: Brother printer won't turn on

[Don Tai via talk]

excellent fix, and you, hopefully, improved your soldering technique!

On Fri, 19 Jan 2024 at 17:46, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk 
wrote:

> My LASER printer / scanner, a Brother MFC-L2729DW, would not power on.
> Normally something like this is due to a power supply failure, but I
> googled and found this:
>
> 
>
> (The video is incomplete; there is another one that is linked from the
> first, but all the useful info is in the first.)
>
> Following his instructions, I found that I could reset the machine to
> work.  But he said that it would fail again on a power failure or even
> just turning it off.  Furthermore, doing this too many times breaks the
> printer.
>
> It turns out that settings are kept in a RAM that is powered by a
> supercapacitor (instead of a battery).  Furthermore, that
> supercapacitor wears out.  All you need to do to fix the printer is
> to replace the supercapacitor.
>
> The video claims all recent Brother printers have these
> supercapacitors.
>
> The video shows you how the replace the supercapacitor.  You need a
> new supercapacitor, which he will sell you.
>
> Armed with this information, I
>
> - bought a suitable supercapacitor from digikey.ca (cheaper and faster
>   than ordering from Australia).  Actually I bought a slightly smaller
>   one, but that seems to be OK.  The original was 0.33F, 5.5V.
>   I paid $3.48 for two, plus $8.00 shipping, plus HST.
>
> - pulled apart the printer, as per video
>
> - hacked out the old supercapacitor and soldered (badly) the new
>   supercapacitor.  (Doing the job right would have required removing
>   the circuit board.  Instead, I left the old supercapacitor's legs
>   and soldered the new one's legs to the old ones.)
>
> - struggled to get the plastic panel back in place.
>
> It works.
> ---
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> https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
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Re: [GTALUG] war story: Brother printer won't turn on

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: Evan Leibovitch via talk 

| I've had a CDP-L2520DW for at least a decade.
| Touch wood, no problems like this.

I've found Brother laser printers to be fairly reliable, especially 
considering how complex and mechanical they are.  I don't buy other brands 
so I cannot compare them.

I've bought several refurb Brothers from their web site.  Since the 
pandemic, the prices seem to be way higher.

Brother seems to allow clone toners. That's good.

Brother's say that the toner cartridge is empty a bit prematurely.  
Luckily there are sequences of key presses that override this.

| FWIW, I've found Brother tech support to be quite helpful

Good to know.  I've rarely found any tech support useful so I try them 
last.  Google is much better.  I wonder if chatGPT would be better still.

|  While I have no
| idea where she was located, she did know her stuff.

I always ask CSRs "what City are you in" as a kind of stamp collecting.  I 
do it at the end because it isn't important and I don't want to throw the 
conversation off.

| For those of us not intrepid enough, or lacking confidence in keeping a
| soldering gun steady -- I wonder if Brother might make available a
| replacement circuit board.
| More expensive than buying a single capacitor but less than replacing what
| has otherwise been a pretty good unit (from a company that has supported
| Linux very well).

I'd like to say that soldering is a basic life-skill, but it isn't. One 
could try Dropping in on the Hacklab open house (Tuesdays starting at 
18:00)? 

Ohh: I thought that the Repair Cafe had died but I'm wrong: 


The repair is pretty easy if you've done any soldering.  I solder about 
twice a decade, so I'm not very good at it.

I don't know what soldering guns are good for.  Probably not electronics.  
I use a cheap soldering iron I bought three to five decades ago.  
Probably from Radio Shack.  For electronics work, you want a low power and 
small iron.

The latest cool cheap soldering iron is the PINECIL V2.  It has a RISC-V 
processor and open source software.  Why, I don't know.  I'd have bought 
one but the shipping doubles the price and irks me.

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Re: [GTALUG] war story: Brother printer won't turn on

[Evan Leibovitch via talk]

I've had a CDP-L2520DW for at least a decade.
Touch wood, no problems like this.
FWIW, I've found Brother tech support to be quite helpful -- I used their
chat-wirth-an-agent system instead of phone or email.
The problem I had -- fuser related -- was solved quickly. While I have no
idea where she was located, she did know her stuff.
For those of us not intrepid enough, or lacking confidence in keeping a
soldering gun steady -- I wonder if Brother might make available a
replacement circuit board.
More expensive than buying a single capacitor but less than replacing what
has otherwise been a pretty good unit (from a company that has supported
Linux very well).

- Evan


On Fri, Jan 19, 2024 at 2:09 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk 
wrote:

> My LASER printer / scanner, a Brother MFC-L2729DW, would not power on.
> Normally something like this is due to a power supply failure, but I
> googled and found this:
>
> 
>
> (The video is incomplete; there is another one that is linked from the
> first, but all the useful info is in the first.)
>
> Following his instructions, I found that I could reset the machine to
> work.  But he said that it would fail again on a power failure or even
> just turning it off.  Furthermore, doing this too many times breaks the
> printer.
>
> It turns out that settings are kept in a RAM that is powered by a
> supercapacitor (instead of a battery).  Furthermore, that
> supercapacitor wears out.  All you need to do to fix the printer is
> to replace the supercapacitor.
>
> The video claims all recent Brother printers have these
> supercapacitors.
>
> The video shows you how the replace the supercapacitor.  You need a
> new supercapacitor, which he will sell you.
>
> Armed with this information, I
>
> - bought a suitable supercapacitor from digikey.ca (cheaper and faster
>   than ordering from Australia).  Actually I bought a slightly smaller
>   one, but that seems to be OK.  The original was 0.33F, 5.5V.
>   I paid $3.48 for two, plus $8.00 shipping, plus HST.
>
> - pulled apart the printer, as per video
>
> - hacked out the old supercapacitor and soldered (badly) the new
>   supercapacitor.  (Doing the job right would have required removing
>   the circuit board.  Instead, I left the old supercapacitor's legs
>   and soldered the new one's legs to the old ones.)
>
> - struggled to get the plastic panel back in place.
>
> It works.
> ---
> Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org
> Unsubscribe from this mailing list
> https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>


-- 
Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch / @el56
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Re: [GTALUG] war story: Brother printer won't turn on

[Michael Galea via talk]

On 2024-01-19 14:08, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

My LASER printer / scanner, a Brother MFC-L2729DW, would not power on.
Normally something like this is due to a power supply failure, but I
googled and found this:



Good for you!
Last year my Braun WaterPik stopped working. I disassembled it and 
identified what

looked like a blown fuse. Bypassing it worked.
Two weeks ago, the same device started making a squealing sound of the 
motor spinning
freely at high speed. I disassembled it again and fabricated a metal 
shim to hold the motor

against the gearing. Squeals like a stuck pig but works just fine.

--
Michael Galea

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[GTALUG] war story: Brother printer won't turn on

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

My LASER printer / scanner, a Brother MFC-L2729DW, would not power on.
Normally something like this is due to a power supply failure, but I
googled and found this:



(The video is incomplete; there is another one that is linked from the
first, but all the useful info is in the first.)

Following his instructions, I found that I could reset the machine to
work.  But he said that it would fail again on a power failure or even
just turning it off.  Furthermore, doing this too many times breaks the 
printer.

It turns out that settings are kept in a RAM that is powered by a
supercapacitor (instead of a battery).  Furthermore, that
supercapacitor wears out.  All you need to do to fix the printer is
to replace the supercapacitor.

The video claims all recent Brother printers have these
supercapacitors.

The video shows you how the replace the supercapacitor.  You need a
new supercapacitor, which he will sell you.

Armed with this information, I

- bought a suitable supercapacitor from digikey.ca (cheaper and faster
  than ordering from Australia).  Actually I bought a slightly smaller 
  one, but that seems to be OK.  The original was 0.33F, 5.5V.
  I paid $3.48 for two, plus $8.00 shipping, plus HST.

- pulled apart the printer, as per video

- hacked out the old supercapacitor and soldered (badly) the new
  supercapacitor.  (Doing the job right would have required removing
  the circuit board.  Instead, I left the old supercapacitor's legs
  and soldered the new one's legs to the old ones.)

- struggled to get the plastic panel back in place.

It works.
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