» Brother HL-2040 Monochrome Laser Printer

Brother HL-2040 Monochrome Laser Printer Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Print quality good, but paper feed/jamming issues
Comment: I've had one of these on my secretary's desk for less than two years. Initially it worked fine. Good print quality for text, which is 99% of what we print. About six months later, my secretary started getting paper jams. They became more frequent over time. Last week, the machine stopped feeding paper, both from the paper tray and the one-sheet-at-a-time slot. What would happen is that the paper feed mechanism would start and then abruptly stop before the sheet of paper was fully loaded. I have been unable to fix it, and am about to trash the unit.

Granted, the purchase price for this printer is very low ($50-60; ditto for the model that replaced it), and the print quality is good. I would recommend it only for low-volume printing.

By the way, Brother Cust. Service was of little help re the "does not feed" issue; they ultimately told my secretary to take the printer to a repair shop. Sure. It would cost me more for a repair estimate than it would cost to buy a brand new unit.

Some machines are designed and built in such a way as to be bullet-proof. They work well out of the box and continue working well for many years with little or no maintenance, e.g., HP4, IBM Selectric (okay, I'm dating myself), most Toyotas, etc. The HL-2040 is the exact opposite. It is not a durable machine and is destined for an early trip to the recycler/landfill.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Semi Dispossable Printer
Comment: This is the second 2040 I've had, 1st one lasted about a year (paid $150 for it) before the drum went. Drum costs more than printer at local stores. Bought a new one for $100 (new drum, new catridge), again it's lasted just over a year and the drum light is on again. So I'm shopping again. Money wise I got my money's worth and it worked fine all year. Environment wise I don't like dumping these in the landfill because they can't make a drum that'll last longer than a year, or at least provide a cost effective replacement.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: How to fix if paper feed brakes
Comment: This is how I "fixed it" if the paper feed stops working,
first, see if the manual feed still works,
if it does, then this simple solution is probably the answer.

you need to take off the left side panel, the one under the go button and lights.
once the side panel is off, in the very front you will see a black gear wheel. Part of the gear wheel has no spikes in it, it's not supposed to.
there is a spring, running from a nob on the gear wheal to the printer frame.
The defect is, the spring is too weak and over time fail. All I did was make a tighter fit with the spring by stretching out the end, which I know is not an ideal solution because over time this will stretch out the spring. But a spring doesn't cost much to replace on your own, and now my printer which has been broken for 8 months works again.

The paper curls
feed is not perfect
lousy printer
good for me, because I need to do a lot of printing where quality is not an issue, no a laser printer saves me money.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: GREAT Printer for Price and Size
Comment: I have had this printer for about 3 months now. I don't print with it everyday but I print many items over the weekends. I use the printer feed, 75% of the time, to print out shipping labels. I find this printer to be superb! It is compact enough, fits on a shelf in my closet, light enough to move back and forth to my desk. It prints incredibly fast and crisp for my purposes. I have not had any issues with jamming yet. I recommend it for fast and simple printer needs.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: great printer
Comment: i friggin love this printer. It does both one- and two-sided printing well, quickly. I just go brush my teeth and 30 pages are finished printing by the time i get back. it has never stuck...never. I couldnt ask for a better printer, really. unless it has a built in fax machine and copier lol

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