Tuesday, 07 October 2014

Sustaining Your Printer For The Years Ahead

Whichever brand of printer you have purchased, or whichever type of printing services it gives you, you have invested a reasonable sum of money into this product, be it a laser printer or an inkjet printer. Spending a portion of your wallet on these devices would definitely mean that you need to conserve them in the long term, and maintain them properly, so that repair charges or replacement needs are reduced over the long run.

We want our printer to serve us as long as they can with their features and functions, and the only reason we should consider for replacement is when they have gone outdated with other specifications. As the user, we have the utmost responsibility and power for our own printer’s maintenance, so let us look at a few ways of how to do that!

Just like anything else, your printer needs cleaning as well

You have to clean your printer both on the inside and out. Take a soft cloth which has a bit of moisture on it to wipe the exterior of your printer from time to time. This will help you keep your printer clean without dust and it will make it look as new as how it did when you bought it. But more importantly, you have to clean the insides of your printer. This is where your documents are being churned out so it has to be clean for you to have good looking documents processed from it.

This cleaning of the inside is very easy to do and it will have a noticeable difference in your printing quality thereafter. Remove the debris and paper dust and you can do this with a can of compressed air. See, easy! Set a day in the month on your calendar to do this to keep your print jobs crisp and professional, just like how they should be!

Replace old rollers which are worn out and chunky

Rollers are the pieces of devices in your printer that move your paper through the printer as a printing job is being done. As they age, they lose friction and smoothen out. This makes them lose control of the paper and the paper would not be pulled as well as it used to be. This increases the likelihood of having a paper jam! There are a few ways around this. You can either buy up kits to replace your rollers entirely, or you can also consider roughening up your rollers once again so they gain the initial friction. The latter can be done with a small file rubbed against the rollers. Make sure you roughen up your rollers evenly while doing this because uneven rollers are no good as well. This might be worthwhile trying while waiting to find new rollers or installing them.

Invest in a service manual

As far as you take things to your hands, you have to make sure you have the knowledge for it. This doesn’t mean you need to have a warranty to safeguard you, but you need an instructions book to guide your actions on your printer, and a service manual would come in handy. A service manual can be a layman’s guide of how to sort out simple problems which do not seek the help of a professional as of yet.

Manufacturers sell these service manuals for customers and they basically tell you how to take care of your printers and how to repair them if anything goes wrong. These books come packed with diagrams to aid understanding. Any self diagnosing is well done with the help of such books rather than meddling around your printer on your own without proper guidance.

Engaging manufacturer-certified and responsive service personnel and technicians

We are not always in the best capacity to repair and maintain our printers. Most of the times, it is better to seek the help of a professional to help out, especially if we are talking about printers in a school or office setting, where the turnover rate of print-outs are high and the usage of the printer is very high as well. Any problem with printer parts especially, is honestly better dealt with by the professionals. No point meddling around, dismantling your printer trying to figure out where the problem is coming from, if you are not sure of how it works overall.

Moreover, printer manufacturers of the modern day are using more and thinner plastic which can be damaged and are rather fragile if not handled properly. While even replacing ink and toner cartridges have to be done with care, exploring the insides with a rough hand and lack of time is not such a good idea. Get someone professional to help you out and the best person would probably be someone from a manufacturer-certified printing repair and replacement service.