Customer Reviews

Brother DR350 Drum Unit

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The cartridge that this drum holds will refuse to let you print after a certain time, alleging that the toner life is ended.

This will fly in the face of the evidence of crisp pages, with evidently a decent amount of toner left. This is not like the old days, where the pages continue to print, and the print quality degrades as toner dissipates. Nope, this is a "We'll decide for you when you go get another cartridge" move by the manufacturer.


Countermeasures against this ploy:

1. Shake cartridge, replace
2. After a while, #1 won't work. Then, open cover, Options, *00, close cover
2. After a while, #2 won't work. Then, get a black Sharpie and cover the laser window on the non-gear side of the cartridge.

Should get you closer to getting your money's worth.

I had a "Change Drum Soon" message for over a year, and the original drum kept working fine. I finally had to replace the drum at 16,080 copies because of some smearing/double imaging.

This trick, plus the tape-over-hole trick for extending toner cartridge life, reduces your consumables cost by 40%. Well under 2 cents per page...better than any other laser printer I know of.

**12-30-09: The following trick is obsolete. HL-2040 is no longer sold** -->> The brother HL-2040 printer often goes on sale for 65 to 70 bucks. Just throw away the printer but use the DR-350 drum and the starter toner cartridge ($25 worth of toner).

I changed the drum but the printer still asks me to change the drum. It was a very expensive piece and it is very frustrating to still see this error message...

The DR-350 drum that came with my original MFC Brother printer lasted about a year. I use this printer in a home office, with a moderate amount of printing. Since replacing the drum unit (twice), the life of the drum has been less than acceptable. Even with a new (not reburbished) drum, black streaks appeared on all of my printed pages. With the new drum installed, the printer unit message still indicated a new drum was needed.

This drum also comes as a complete unit with the TN-350 toner. I tried that as well, with the same results, PLUS I received intermittent messages that the toner was low only a week after installation, with minimal use.

Might be a drum unit problem; might be a printer problem. Either something is wrong with sensors in the printer, or the drum units are poorly constructed. Can't tell which it is, but either way, makes for poor printing quality.

For $5-$10 more than the cost of this drum, you can buy a brand new Brother HL-2070n printer, which includes not only this drum, but also:

1. a new 2,000 page toner cartridge (although you have to follow instructions freely available on the Internet to keep the toner cartridge from shutting down after 1,000 pages.)
2. a spare printer for free.

I have two HL-2070N printers that get moderate use in a home office setting. At first, I was ordering "compatible toner" cartridges. They ended up causing all sorts of issues with the printers. Now, I stick to OEM parts and have not had a single problem. I do shake the toner cartridge to get more life out of it. I just started to get the drum message, so it needs replacement. I am considering though, purchasing a new printer for a few more bucks. It's ashame that things are made this way, but with electronics, this is the game the manufacturers have you play. And for what it is worth, I have dealt with Brother tech support and customer service on some problems we had unrelated to toner and they were horrible. One of the worst that I've ever seen. I like the HL-2070N, but not sure if I will buy another Brother due to their bad attitude towards their customers. I do have an HP9800 that I bought like 4-5 years ago and it still works great. It was a little expensive, but produces everything up to 11 X 17 prints. Also, I cannot deal with downtime, so I'm willing to spend a little more money.

This drum arrived with toner particles on the roller. We called to get replacement unit which also have toner particles on it. Since my drum is not working so I have to use this drum. So far, the drum is working OK. I just don't know if this was a returned item from other customer.

I don't buy my drums / toner cartridges from anywhere else since I've started getting them from Amazon. They're a great price, consistently in perfect condition and the fastest shipping around. I'm a repeat customer for this item and will continue to be.

Brother printers may be cheap, but the drum units for them are not. This is a classic business trickery. They tease you with a cheap first buy. Then you have no choice but to continue buy the expensive parts. Furthermore, the quality of the drum is not good either. The company says that one drum unit can be used for 12,000 pages assuming 5% coverage. This is not true. The drum unit replaced with the original one in my printer had problems far before printing that number of pages based on 5% coverage.

I needed a new drum unit for my network printer. Wanted to obtain the Manufacturer's product and not a second party product. Amazon was the cheapest place, with free shipping/no tax that I could find. Arrived when expected, placed the toner cartridge in, dropped it in the printer after following the included instructions, and away we go. No Brainer!