Cleaning printer rollers.

[PJBeee]

In a nutshell: DON'T spray it into the printer, just rub some on the rollers...  Now read on...

I just discovered this "fix" a short time ago, and I'm glad I did. A couple of months ago (maybe 3?)  I changed the tray feed rollers in a maybe one-year-old business-class HP LaserJet - wasn't feeding reliably. Used new HP-branded rollers, and guess what? The paper feed issue remained. Sprayed some WD40 on a paper towel, rubbed it on the rollers, waited 2-3 minutes for it to "dry" and tried printing again. Worked right away, and still is.

I have now "repaired" several laser printers in this way with absolutely no ill-effects. What's more, the printers are still feeding paper OK.

So for the naysayers, I say "go for it." To me, it's seems like a good short-term fix at the least, but also a possible long-term fix for many problems such as these. And of course, re-treatment as needed is always an option.

The WD40 appears to permeate the roller material, and make it more pliable and just "sticky" enough that the roller does what it's supposed to do, which is.... wait for it.. feed paper.

YMMV, but I'm confident of this procedure, at least with respect to it doing no harm.  I would be interested to hear from anyone who's had a bad experience doing this.

And the usual disclaimer... I take no responsibility for any damage you do using WD40, but I have a hard time envisioning such damage. Heck, you could make a bad roller worse (I still doubt that), but then you're probably no worse off than before.

[Ray T]

Hmmm...

My vote still goes with meths. Why? The residue it will leave behind will be imperceptible.

1) I spent a happy half hour with the local chemist thirty odd years ago. I went in to try and buy some isopropyl alcohol to clean tape recording heads. He hadn't got any to sell me but thought meths would make a good substitute. I raised the issue of residue left by the purple dye and, looking through various chemical tomes, he concluded that meths was likely to have fewer impurities than isopropyl even with the dye.

2) An old photographer's trick I used for a number of years - when developing films, instead of water for the final wash, use meths. (a) it avoids streaks from drying water and (b) the film drys much quicker so you can get on with printing the photos. I never noticed any problem with residue despite enlarging meths bathed negatives several hundred times.

[Calverley Lad]

Given that the original poster hasn't been here for 12months and on a 4year old thread I would have thought the problem would be sorted by now!
 Brian