How NOT to clean a laser printer

As previously mentioned, I did on site warranty support for a major computer company and a major printer company for a few years. My stories are culled from that time.

Call to a lawyer's office (always a treat) about a printer. I was sent a basic maintenance kit (pickup rollers, etc). The stuff that would get worn out, and the printer would warn that maintenance was required soon, then balk completely once a certain page count was reached. I would perform said work, reset the page count, and all was right with the world. Maybe a 10 minute job.

This particular one turned out not to be a typical maintenance call. It would go through the motions of printing, but blank pages would come out. Changed cartridges, same results. Off come the covers and I start poking around.

In one corner I noticed a dried up spot of what used to be a brown liquid. I asked the secretary about it, and then she finally remembered that,

Oh, yes, last Friday I spilled half a cup of coffee in there. But I took the covers off and cleaned everything with Pledge.

For the uninitiated, laser printers use static electricity to hold the toner on the paper until it passes through a heater to melt the plastic/metal mixture onto the paper. The presence of spray-on furniture wax would affect it's ability to do this.

My next steps, call printer manufacturer to see if the warranty is going to cover this. They say no, I remind them that this is a lawyer's office. They still say no. I tell them that they get to break the news to the attorney about his $2200 printer getting gurked by his secretary, and they should call him at his office number, because I'm on my cell, give me 5 minutes and I'm hauling out of there.

I told the guy that I had to call the printer company about some more parts (like the whole printer) and they should be in touch, and I bailed. I think he finally hassled them enough to get a refurb printer sent to him.

TL;DR You don't clean a printer with anything that leaves a residue like Pledge, and if you don't know what you are doing, you don't open the thing at all.

- User Galoots on Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3aym7b/how_not_to_clean_a_laser_printer/

I hate when non-IT staff start trying to take apart and mess with equipment. It rarely ends well. Something usually ends up screwed up. There would be one secretary without a job the next day.