On Fri, 6 Apr 2018 16:51:23 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

With these inkjet printers being practically disposable around here,
any help in getting this LASER printer to be low maintenance is
appreciated, so thanks in advance.

I'll try to cover the low points of your stream of consciousness
adventure in printer repair.

If you're looking for parts, the CP1215, CP1312, CP1515, CP1518, and
CM1312 are all the same engine. Your CM1312 has the additional glass
plate scanner/copier, but is otherwise similar internally.

I have a CP1518 in my office waiting for me to spend some time raising
it from the dead. The previous owner ran about 60,000 pages through
it in about 6 months. That produced enough wear on the plastic parts
to have it stop printing. It looks new on the outside, but very worn
on the inside. I would expect such a printer to last longer, but I
guess that was only the old HP company.

Yes, the toner cart chip replacement works. I have had some defective
chips, but they were quickly replaced by the vendor. I'll spare you
my rant on refill, counterfeit, and profit protected toner carts.

Clone toner carts are cheap enough that I no longer refill the carts
with toner. It's not the cost, but the mess that I usually make
handling the old and new toner. Replacement carts are about $15/ea or
$40 for set of 4 colors:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=Color+LaserJet+CM1312+toner
https://www.ebay.com/itm/162121265042

The deterioration in print quality you described was probably dirty
optics. With cigarette and recreational drug smog, it coats
everything with a layer of brown tar. Just cleaning the optics isn't
enough. The printer will get hot, the residue on other parts will
volatize, and you'll soon get another layer of tar on the optics. I
suggest painting the insides with alcohol until most of the residue is
gone. Make sure you have a plastic catch basin to trap the dripping
dirty alcohol. I've only done this once, and have refused to do it
again. In the future, you might consider a plastic printer cover when
it's not in use.

Most toner carts use an optical method of determining toner use. Also
used are simply counting pages and declaring the toner out after some
number of pages. Both are rather conservative and tend to indicate
empty when there's plenty of toner left. I vaguely recall that
there's a setting to ignore toner out indicator or something similar,
that will let you run the carts until they are really out.



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558