Brother HL-L5200dw duplex printing issue

Joined
Dec 5, 2020
Messages
1
Hello,

I have recently purchased a brother HL-L5200dw - mainy for:
* it's capability (prints fast and starts up fast - relative for this price point)
* it's pretty affordable (I was thinking either low end business new or better model but second hand then there's issues with components etc)
* it's got a good wifi capability and setup is super fast (I had it up and running in 5 mins from unboxing without needing to read anything - all intuitive)
* it's got / had good reviews for sharpness (albeit it's only a mono printer after all so I'm not really using it to present but for doc sharing where printing for meeting times etc is a requirement - hopefully this will end soon also)

Ok so to the problem. It would appear that when printing doubled sided after sheet 5 (first 10 pages of doc) the printer beings to blur the top third of the page in a band approx 5-8cm's wide.
* The issue only happens on documents longer than 10 pages (so the first page with an issue is page 12 - i.e the reverse of the 6th sheet).
* The issue only happens on the reverse side of the sheet (doc can be any length and the pages from 6th sheet onwards are fine on the front but have this weird blurry band on the back only)
* The issue only happens on the 6th sheet onwards on a certain doc (i.e stop using the printer, open a new doc that's short and print and the first 5 sheets are fine on both sides).

I have read that the drum can get warm and thus distort prints but I thought that would only be the case if I was running say a 100 page mail merge or something really heavy which to be honest I'd not expect a printer of this (relatively low end) quality to be able to handle anyway.

So in summary, appreciate advice:
* should I be sending it back and switching brands as this appears a real problem (or do all printers of this size have limitations that maybe this is the best of a low end quality anyway).
* is there a certain combination of cleaning I need to adopt? it is new so it's literally now got a page count of 50 pages(!)
* is it really true that the drum gets warm and then doesn't display well so basically the finisher finishes like this by design (I can't entirely believe that when the rest of the doc / page is fine - remember it's only affecting the top 1/3 of the reverse page and only on the 6th sheet on in any doc)

If anyone else is experiencing similar or knows of double-sided printing issues with Brother devices this would help a lot. I actually like a lot of the other features (cheaper print cartridge options / small size / appears well made although time will tell - but reviews say so / wifi range is good.

I'd happily send back and buy an older more solid device that come highly recommended for light office use if that's a prescription.

Anyway, thanks if you're still reading this and very much appreciate assistance.

Regards, Orb1t.
 

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