Drum Ends Soon

buy a drum

My MFC-7420 began to display the message "Drum end soon" so I quickly went out and purchased a new drum. But I decided not to install it until I needed to. Because what does "drum end soon" mean? I thought it would mean that the print quality would deteriorate enough that I would notice the problem. So I continued to replace toner as needed, and pushed the blue cleaning thing down the wire regularly. This went on for over 3 years until *finally* I started having regular print job production problems. I replaced the drum, and the problems were solved. So,my advice is be prepared, but don't replace the drum until you have to -- the message means very little.

Are you sure of the error message? The Brother printers that I have used have Drum Ends Soon and Change Belt messages.

The Brother MFC-9440CN has a belt that can be replaced. The Belt unit has an life expectancy of ~50000 pages. The belt unit is part BU100CL and costs a bit over $150 at office supply stores. Amazon.com and some other stores have the unit for under $100. http://www.amazon.com/Brother-BU-100CL-HL-4040CN-HL-4070CDW-Series/dp/B000SC245E is one source.

When the unit says Change Belt Unit, follow the directions from the manual's maintenance section to replace the belt unit. See page 178 (page 189 of the PDF) http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/BSC/public/files/dlf/doc002252/mfc9440_usa_usr_b.pdf . You have to remove the Drum and then the Belt Unit. Then slide in the new Belt Unit and replace the Drum unit. Then close the printer and turn it on. Finally reset the counter from the Machine Info sub menu (press Menu 8 4 and select the Belt Unit and press OK. Then press 1 followed by Stop/Exit).

If you mean the Drum Unit, that is part DR-110CL and costs over $175 at the office supply stores. Order this part when the Drum End Soon message appears and replace it if the print quality deteriorates (or when you have the new drum). The Drum Life is ~17000 pages. The steps start on page 166 (182 of the PDF). You need to remove the old Drum unit. Then remove the toner cartridges from the drum. Prepare the new Drum Unit, including putting the cartridges in the new Drum. Then replace the Drum unit and reset the counter.

I hope this helps.

Cindy Wells

Same with our Brother 8640N, drum near end means toner is nearly to end but sometimes even you replace bew cartridge is appears this message. TONER LIFE END message need to replace cartridge.

Try cleaning the corona wire on the drum.

1. replace drum unit
2. after replacing reset the counter - press "3" and "9" button at the same time in the ready state, the reset menu will appear on the LCD, select "DRUM" and press "ok"
resetting without actual drum replacement might damage your printer.

It means that the drum will end soon. The drum is the piece that holds the printer cartridge. It costs about 115+ dollars at the store, but on ebay, you can get it for a good 60 bucks. :)

By the sound of it, it sounds like the drum for the laser printer is just about shot. Time to get another cartdrige.

Colored vertical streaks - looks like a transfer belt problem, and it's not user fixable. You may need a new belt unit - you can find it for around US$ 80-120, but you may want to have a technician inspect the unit first, since it could arguably be the drum instead, and you don't want to fork around US$ 100 and replace the wrong part.
You can try showing a printer sample at a print shop; by looking at the streaks it is possible to diagnose drum, fuser or belt problems.
Here you find a much more detailed page, for another printer model, but the issues are mainly the same for most color printers:
http://www.laserquipt.com/support/idx/26/452/article/Toner-Smearing-Issues.html

The drum counter counts to 15000 then says replace drum soon. Just open the front door and press options. Select yes.