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Printer and Photocopier Troubleshooting and Repair Collection : Laser Printer prints heavy on one line a..  
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Laser Printer prints heavy on one line about 2 inches from bottom

"What could be causing my Brother HL8e laser printer to smear/or blur one line of text about 1-2" from the bottom of the page. At this point, 90% of the page has already fed through the printer with no problem. Can't see any botched labels or other obstructions. It doesn't always do it, but at least 50% of the time if there is text at that point on the page, there will be a heavier print on that line. I don't know if you would call it blurring, it's kind of like it's printing twice double at that point. Is it the rollers? Which rollers should I replace?"

(From: Frank Reid (reid@indiana.edu).)

If changing the toner cartridge doesn't fix it, the lower (rubber) fuser roller may be bad. Those (at least in HP printers) sometimes don't pinch the paper tightly enough during fusing, causing smears.

The fuser has a teflon-coated hollow metal roller with a heat lamp inside, and another roller which pinches the paper against the hot roller during fusing. The lower roller is made of high-temperature silicone rubber. Those sometimes go bad as described above, but if you have replaced the whole fuser assembly recently, it probably isn't the problem.

Look for any rollers between the pickup roller and the fuser, and clean them with naphtha or mineral spirits. If there is a black roller with foam-like surface, that one is electrically conductive and is part of the mechanism that places electrical charge on the paper. Clean it with alcohol and do not get fingerprints on it. Clean everything in the paper path: If there is a corona wire (instead of the conductive roller), clean it with a Q-tip dipped in alcohol.