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

[Evan Leibovitch]

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 <talk at gtalug.org>
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:
>
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgkHv1c01tQ>
>
> (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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-- 
Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch / @el56
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