Like a Battlefield Surgeon Removing Shrapnel

That is how I feel when I have to deal with rip and tear paper jams.

Printers are such mechanical devices, and color laser printers perhaps the most mechanical of them all. However in a world of software, malware, OS installs and data transfer, there is something almost therapeutic about working with gears, rollers, and paper. In this case, some heavy bound paper had become jammed in a Minolta Color Laser Printer. In the process of trying to free the paper, it tore, leaving a small bit unreachable under the magenta drum. Being such a small bit of paper, the internal sensors on the printer didn’t pick up the continued jam. The problem was compounded by a subsequent paper run, which “accordioned” up under the first and wrapped around. Pulling this bit of jammed paper lose resulted in a few larger bits in the works, which were now unconnected.

Thats where I found the printer.

When you look at a bad rip and tear paper jam, you are confronted with 2 options. First, you can tear the printer completely down, free the jammed bits, and reassemble the printer. This is a non-trivial task which can run up a clients bill in a big hurry, but sometimes it’s the only option. The second choice is to try and go in with tools to free the paper bits, assuming they are seeable and reachable. If this works, you can free a rip and tear jam in very little time, thus saving your client in more ways than one.

On this Minolta I got lucky, and was able to local and remove almost a quarter page of debris. The paper jam being right on the path for the Magenta drum meant I had to take special care not to touch or scratch the drum with the tools, but I pulled it off.