I have a Brother 8360 Dual Tray printer. Fairly new, purchased early September last year.
I purchased couple of Black compatible toner cartridges (thru Walmart.com) but they were by LD Products, and then a couple directly from LD (I have been ordering from LD for several years as I also have an older Dell printer).
I replaced a cartridge a couple of days ago and it’s printing lighter than it should. Not completely unusable but I’m not happy with it.
I called LD & CS said that it’s likely that the drum needs to be replaced. I told her that the drum life remaining is still at roughly 60% (the “remaining life” of everything on the printout is a long bar with 0% on the left and 100% on the right…it doesn’t give an exact percentage).
She is going to send me a replacement but was pretty insistent that it’s the drum.
Anyone have any insight on how often the drum should be replaced?
The page count is at 12,705 and I’ve gone through three cartridges. This would be #4. She said that you would need to replace the drum every 3-4 cartridges.
I have located the following information on the Brother.com support page, and I hope it helps.
Drum wear and tear occurs due to use and rotation of the drum and interaction with paper, toner and other materials in the paper path. In designing this product, Brother decided to use the number of rotations of the drum as a reasonable determinant of the drum life. When a drum reaches the factory-established rotation limit corresponding to the rated page yield, the product’s LCD will advise you to replace the drum. The product will continue to function; however, print quality may not be optimal.If an unpacked drum unit is placed in direct sunlight (or room light for long periods of time), the unit may be damaged.
There are many factors that determine the actual drum life, such as the temperature, humidity, type of paper, type of toner used and so on. Under ideal conditions, the average drum life is estimated at approximately 30,000 pages based on 1 page per job and 50,000 pages based on 3 pages per job [A4/letter simplex pages]. The number of pages may be affected due to a variety of factors including but not limited to media type and media size.
Because we have no control over the many factors that determine the actual drum life, we cannot guarantee a minimum number of pages that will be printed by your drum.
For best performance, use only genuine Brother toner.
The machine should be used only in a clean, dust-free environment with adequate ventilation. Printing with a non-Brother drum unit may reduce not only the print quality but also the quality and life of the machine itself. Warranty coverage does not apply to problems caused by the use of a non-Brother drum unit.
Try this - open printers from settings in windows. click preferences and print dialog box should appear, check properties, uncheck two sided if needed, go to advanced, click other options and open density. Un click default, slide bar for more density. click out. Probably would not hurt to restart printer and computer.
Open page to test, open dialog box to verify settings have changed. This should fix problem.
Love my Brother printers and have never used anything but aftermarket toner for many years. Always be sure to reset page count when changing drums
Unfortunately, I don’t have that option on my HL8360. I do have it on my MFC2690, so I am familiar with it. It was the first thing I looked for, hoping I could darken the print.
I ordered a drum, which should be here on Friday. But if it is the drum, it will be very disappointing since the settings still show the “remaining life” at roughly 60%.
I did not get a message saying to replace the drum. The only issue is lighter print.
My smaller 2690 says approximately 12,000 pages per drum and I got the message at about 11,400.
So for this larger, more expensive printer, to only get just under 13,000/30,000 is definitely disappointing.
I completely understand that with what we do, we are not going to get nearly the approximate number of prints for the toner or the drum unit, but this seems awfully low when compared to another Brother product.
Have you tried adjusting your DPI printer settings? I’ve had this issue in the past, and had to stop buying the cheaper toner carts because these are often not filled all the way and/or they are using a much weaker toner product. I now only buy toner products from Brother. It’s expensive, but I don’t have to worry about the print quality.
I checked that as well. It was already on the highest setting of 2400.
UPDATE:
It is not the drum. The drum I ordered arrived today. I replaced it, reset the drum counter & tried printing a few of the same documents I was trying to print the other day.
They look exactly the same, so the drum is not the problem. I now have a brand new drum in the printer AND one that has 58% “remaining life”.
I’ll see what happens when I get the replacement toner cartridges from LD. As I mentioned, I have used them in the past without any issues, so I’m hoping it was just a bad batch & the new one will fix the issue.
I know it’s not the documents themselves because I ended up printing them on my 10-year old Dell and they looked fine.
I’ve had terrible results using non-Brother cartridges. Unfortunately, they create messy ink-splotches and deplete the drum life almost immediately for me. I love my printer but the only way to keep it in good working condition is to use their cartridges. Bummer since they’re pricey.
I have a Xerox. I get the recycled on Amazon about half the price. I keep several on the shelf because every once in a while the printer realizes it’s not a Xerox brand and stops working. Gets really cranky over it.
I keep an extra drum. I just replaced the drum because I got the message to. I didn’t check page count or anything I just do what I’m told.
When I replace the drum I order another back up. It’s cheaper than Xerox as well from Amazon.
So far, the big problem I had was when I tried to shake one more print out of a cartridge and I loosened something and it got everywhere. I don’t do that anymore.
I save a LOT buying off brand from Amazon instead of Xerox parts. Knock on wood, no issues yet. But I keep lots of extra supplies for the day when my printer gets cranky.
I had the same problem with my Brother (different model) printer, and found out the drum unit can be cleaned to improve clarity. I found instructions for cleaning in the online manual for my model on the Brother website. It tells how to print a test page to locate the source of the problem with a warning to not touch the surface of the roller, using only the outer wheel to turn roller while cleaning with a dry cotton swab. Good luck.
Printer starting to print lighter? Remove the cartridge and shake it (but not over your clothing). This should give you an extra 1000 copies. This only works a couple of times.
Brother is very proprietary. I had so many issues with my first printer, using non brother toners etc. I’ve changed my ways and break bread for the Brother toners and I have peace. Good luck!
I have the same printer. So far I’ve printed 70,000+ pages, replaced the cartridges nine times each and replaced the drum unit only once. I do keep a spare drum unit on hand BTW.
I have been using computers (and printers) since 1978. I am a retired Network Administrator for a medium-sized manufacturing company. I have tried “off brand” toners, inks and ribbons a few times over the years. Every single time, I had a less-than-satisfactory result…sometimes extremely unsatisfactory. Because of this, I always purchase OEM toners, inks and ribbons for my former employer and for myself personally.
Incidentally, I purchase the Super High Yield cartridges.
I have the Brother 8360 and the MFC 5850. The MFC was the first I bought and was a work horse. It most recently started printing and scanning a line through the paper. When I consulted a repair I was told the drum needed replacing and would cost $500 for drum and labor. That’s when I bought the 8360. I would LOVE to have my husband repair the MFC…where do you get the info/knowledge to do this?
