The printer's paper feeder had self-esteem issues and would stop working. With some coaxing and a little compressed air it would start working again, and might continue to work for several weeks before the next problem.

Then one day, something in the roller area got stuck. After removing a paper jam, the roller gears started skipping and making a terrible clicking sound. (The printer had been entirely paper jam free up to this point.)

Eventually I removed the back panel of the case in order to help the paper feed, which was operating at a 50% success rate. I got another paper jam, and during the next warm-up cycle there was again a horrible clicking and crunching sound. The rollers were trying to eat some small piece of plastic, which eventually came out in shreds, embedded in a sheet of paper.

One of the rollers was now scarred, leaving a pattern of dents in the paper as it went through.

Time to break out the screwdriver.

Here are several printed circuit boards. To the left is the main power board. There is a fat electrolytic capacitor on there rated for 200wv 470 micro-farads, and some kind of transformer, and some fuses, and some heat-sinked power regulators. A sixteen pin plug provides +5V and +24V to the device.

Above the power board there is a DPST switch, and a grounded male power socket.

At the bottom middle is the main controller board. There's a big Samsung chip marked s3c4660x01-qero. On the right edge is the printer cable socket. No fun parts to salvage here, this is all robot assembled stuff.

Above the control board are the front panel controls. Three momentary switches and four LEDs.

Top center, I think this is the board that controls the fan. There are two IC dips with what look like copper heat sinks soldered across some of the pins, so I can't read the chip designations, and I have no idea what those copper plates are for. Connectors to the board are marked "fan" and "sol".

Upper right is I think the motor controller. Board is marked "apollo8 hvps rev 2.0". Four transformers. There's a HD74LS07P IC (hex buffer open collector).

Bottom right is a 1 1/2" fan. These things cost at least $5 at Radio Shack, so worth salvaging.

A laser printer means there is a laser inside! LASER was originally an acronym meaning Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Now it is just a word.

The laser package is at the top -- with the cover removed! I could have gone blind. The laser creating thing is mounted on an "LD DRIVER" pcb. A six sided mirror is mounted on a motor on a second pcb. The laser switches on and off very quickly, the mirror spins, deflecting the laser from right to left, through a set of lenses and down onto the paper. Clever engineering with the mirror -- you only have to turn the motor one direction, and the laser continually sweeps from right to left.

In the middle of the photo is a ten inch heater in a metal tube, rated 115V 400W. It looks like a halogen light bulb. This is used to melt the toner onto the paper (the laser creates a static charge which attracts the toner to the paper, and the heater melts the toner into place).

Below the heater is a strip of eighteen LEDs connected serially. I thought this might be some kind of sensor, but there are only two wires leading out. These must be the worklights for the tiny gnomes who work inside the printer.

The big motor thing is a Mitsumi 7.5 degree 4 ohm stepper motor. The dime sized disk next to it is, I believe, a thermistor (it was located above the heating element).

At the bottom is a solenoid, some kind of sensor, and a momentary switch.

Not sure what kind of sensor this is, I'm thinking maybe a photodiode or photoresistor. The latter seems more likely. There are two plates that extend up, an then there is some kind of jaggy thing between them which you can't quite see in the photo. The whole thing is in some transparent amber plastic.

I hope you have enjoyed this sexy little journey. Feel free to correct my poor assumptions.