Xerox Phaser® 3635 Style Toner Cartridges

Refilling and rebuilding the Toner/Drum units for the Xerox® Phaser® 3635 MFP & WorkCentre® 3550

Phaser 3635 Toner Cartridge

The Phaser^® 3635 and WorkCentre^® 3550 Toner Cartridges are rather easy to refill and rebuild. Quality aftermarket toner and parts (drums and charge rolls) are all available and there’s a nice delta between the cost of a (proper) rebuild and the cost of a new OEM cartridge.

The two models (Phaser 3635MFP and WC-3550) use very similar cartridges.  The only difference is the CRUM chip which tells the machine which cartridge type it is.  There are also two yield types of cartridges for each of the two models:  Standard Capacity and Hi Capacity.  Here the differences will be the CRUM chip and the amount of toner which is loaded into the cartridge (135g for the Standard Capacity, and 290g for the Hi Capacity).  One advantage is that the cartridges are physically identical, so regardless of which yield type you want to rebuild, you may use either empty and simply fill it with the appropriate amount of toner and corresponding CRUM chip.

At a minimum, you will need a bottle of toner and a replacement CRUM chip.  If you want to do a more complete rebuild, you’ll also need a replacement drum, cleaning blade and charge roller.  The only tools you’ll need are a Phillips head screwdriver, a small flat-head screwdriver and a funnel.

Precaution:  on this type of cartridge, the drum is totally exposed below.  Pay attention to where you place the cartridge so that the drum doesn’t get damaged or exposed to too much light. If you have to pack the drum afterward for shipping, place something soft against it and wrap it firmly so that the material against the drum doesn’t move around or cause abrasions to the drum’s surface.

Time to open one up and fill ‘er up!

Get oriented in Photo #1 which shows what we’ll call top vs. bottom; front vs. rear; and left end vs. right end.

Photo #2: Left-end Cover

Photo #3: Gears on Left End

Photo #4: Right-end Gear

Photo #5: Right end Inside

PROCEDURE:

1. Start by gently removing the left drum lever off the end of the drum’s shaft with a flat-head screwdriver. Remove the left end cover which is held into place by three Philips-head screws and one clip which is accessed through a small square opening in the top front corner (see Photo #2).CAUTION: there are seven gears hiding behind this left-end cover which are not captive (see Photo #3) and they will fall off easily if you don’t take care to prevent that from happening.  It’s a good idea to reinstall the left-end cover after you separate the two halves of the cartridge (step 3) to help keep all of the gears in place
2. Take off the similar-looking right drum lever and then remove the right-end cover (3 screws and a clip again [see Photo #4]). Notice that the two drum levers are different from one another, so pay attention to which is which.
3. Lift the top cover off (see Photo #5). The charge cleaning roll is mounted to it.
   

   Photo #6: Separate the Two Halves

   

   Photo #7: E-clip

   

   Photo #8: Charge Roll Removal

    

    

4. Now you can separate the two halves of the cartridge by releasing the flanges on the toner/mag roll half (the front half) from the studs on the drum/cleaning half (see Photo # 6). At this point you may want to reinstall the left-end cover temporarily — just to hold the gears in place while you work.  One screw and the clip should be sufficient.
5. Extract the plug out of the toner fill hole (refer back to Photo #5) and dump out any remaining old toner. Use a toner vacuum to clean out the unit.  Removing the mag roll and metering blade (doctor blade) is not necessary unless the existing toner is contaminated or the mag roll shows starvation lines (areas where some foreign substance is trapped behind the metering blade, preventing toner from evenly coating the mag roll’s surface).  If it does, you’d need to remove the metering blade (2 screws) to get in there more completely.
6. Use a funnel to pour the new toner into the toner fill hole and then reinstall the plug. Clean up the outside and check for leaks.
7. Move on to the drum/cleaning half of the cartridge to remove the drum. Remove one E-clip from the right end of the drum shaft (see Photo # 7) and slide the drum shaft all the way out of the opposite end of the drum.  Now you can lift the drum out of its cradle.
8. To remove the charge roller, shift it to your right (see Photo # 8) until it comes loose on the end which has the little white gear. When you reinstall the charge roller and drum later, it is advisable to clean off the old conductive grease and reapply a fresh coat to help keep the drum ground and charge bias connections happy.
9. Remove the drum blade (2 screws). You’ll find it to be a snug fit, so be patient, gentle and persistent.  Vacuum out all of the waste toner and clean up the unit.
10. Apply starting powder (Kynar works good here) on the drum and the drum blade. Start the drum by rotating it by hand for a few full rotations. You want to make sure the blade will not stick to the drum.
11. Now you can reassemble the cartridge.
    

    Photo #9: CRUM Removal

     

     

12. Finally… you’ll need to replace the toner reset CRUM chip which is needed to reset the toner count for the machine and get it working again. Pop off the small cover which holds the toner reset CRUM chip (see Photo # 9). If you get under the cover with the blade of a small flat-head screwdriver and pry up, it will pop the two plastic rivets which hold the cover in place.  Install the new CRUM chip and either glue the cover back into place or drill two small holes and install screws to hold it on.    

That’ll do it!  You’re on to your next conquest.

These will quickly become very familiar once you’ve learned how to rebuild them.  I hope this article helps get you started.  It’s a great way to save your customer money, go green and make some green at the same time.  Happy Refilling everyone!