Customer Rating:  
Summary: Solution to "Back Cover Open" Error
Comment: My bought one of these printers from a co-worker about a year ago. I worked well for until he had some issues with a paper jam. I won't go through the paper-jam issue in this post. Others have beaten that drum enough. Once he cleared both the physical jam on the printer and cleared the printer queue, the printer displayed the "Back door open..." error. He was wanting to take the machine to a repair center to have someone look at it. I asked him if I could, "Just for fun." He agreed and after twenty minutes of research (these reviews were more helpful than the Brother website), I focused my examination on something, anything that physically resembles a switch. Turns out that the design team opted for an optical sensor instead of a contact switch. The optical switch is "closed" when something breaks the beam. A beam of light (can't see it with the naked eye) shoot from one of the small, square brown block to the other.
If you want to find it yourself:
1. open the back door cover,
2. pull the tab to open the rear chute cover,
3. follow the edge of the rear chute cover until you see it end in between the slot it travel in (it should be a rectangular tab that visibly stands out from the silver/white background in the slot),
4. take about 1/2 inches of the sticky part of a post it and wrap is over the black arm in way that make it stick out in front of the tab about 1/4 inch,
5. let your eyes follow the slot (its a curve) until you see the two brown block I mentioned earlier,
6. close ONLY the rear chute cover until your paper trim is in between the two blocks (make sure the power is on, you should see a light come on to warm the roller),
7. if that does the trick, carefully open the rear chute cover and add a little tape to make sure your modification stays put,
8. close up everything and continue printing.
This fix costs next to nothing. A post-it and some scotch tape. The main issue I had was with the design. I know that a contact switch would work as well as the optical one, but I think Brother was shooting for the printer to work a long time. I used to design assemble tools for some the the electronic components in it. My experience tells me that the problem with this design could have been mitigated in pcb design or the a small modification of the rear chute cover. Oh well. A pretty decent printer got a bad rap because of what I'd consider a simple oversight or an easy to fix home solution.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The perfect buy for the money.
Comment: I have had this printer for only two weeks, but so far it has performed admirably. Although it does have some limitations, one expects these with such an inexpensive network all-in-one printer. Only a few things have bothered me about this printer, and one of them is software based.
First, this printer does not seem to be able to print on 24# parchment paper, even if there doesn't seem to be any texture to it (I can't detect any, at least). I have tried changing settings, but nothing appears to make any difference, and ghosting occurs every time. Oddly enough, the printer ghosted on everything I printed until I took out the toner and cleaned it.
The other major problem I noticed was in scanning multiple two-sided pages, but this relates to the software. The pages get messed up, no matter what order I put them in. I flip them over, and the pages go backwards on one side. Frustrating if you want to copy a two-sided packet.
But, on the other hand, the printer has some excellent pros. First and foremost is that this was the cheapest network all-in-one laser printer I could find. Our former printer was not networked, and we had to have my wife's computer on to print, which was a pain. Having it on a network means we can print with either of our computers on as well as wirelessly with our laptop.
Also, while the curling up that others have reported has occurred, the pages, as long as they're not too moist, flatten out quite quickly afterward. The prints appear to be great (after cleaning the toner up), and the paper feeder has not given me any issues (yet).
This printer will not function like a $300-$400 printer, but that's to be expected. For the money, this printer is fantastic, except for the caveats I've noticed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wow! Great Multi-Function!
Comment: I bought the Brother 7820N 9 months ago and love it! I would highly recommend this MFC to anyone that wants a multifunction device and does not need to print in color. It is cheap to operate and is always ready to go. No cleaning, no purchasing new print cartridges. I plan to pick up this same printer for my father for Christmas.
Customer Rating:
Summary: PERFECT but Does Not Copy Well b/c Skips Pages if More Than 5 Pages
Comment: I am a solo attorney and have to copy peoples documents and documents for court. I use about 1000 sheets per month in the Bother 7820n and a bother hl-1440 so my use is below requiring a corporate copier.
BAD COPYING/SCAN/FAX OF MORE THAN 5 PAGES AT A TIME.
If I copy, scan or fax 5 or more pages I have to either hold each page as it goes through the copier or count the pages when it goes through. It misses a page by throwing 2 or more through at a time every time I do more than 5 pages.
BAD ENVELOPES
In addition it does not do envelopes because it crinkles them and ghosts (slightly lighter duplicate imprint in a different position). I use a separate printer for envelopes.
GOOD EVERYTHING ELSE
If copying is not important there is no better machine. Cheap great machine. I have not replaced it in the year that I have owned it but rather held the sheets as they go in.
FAX TO EMAIL ROCKS
This machine has a really really easy scan to email or fax to email function where you can press the scan button on the machine then down to select email or click an icon in brother's program from your computer. It makes it into a PDF and opens an outlook new email. It can use the sheet feeder for multiple pages. You title the email and address it and click send. My clients love it. I love it. It can take less than a minute to email smaller documents from scan to email sent.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great machine!
Comment: After a month, the machine is great. Setup is a bear though. I have one XP and one Vista machine on a home network. Sales literature promised easy set up with the included disk through the home router. Not so for either machine. I ended up plugging a USB cable directly from the printer into the XP machine and connecting the Vista machine to the printer through the network using a network cable. After many, many hours of trial and error installing, uninstalling, and re-installing the included software, I finally realized the print and scan functions would never work on the Vista machine if I used the supplied install disk. I called Brother support and they did nothing but take me through the steps I had already been through. Finally, I manually installed the printer and scanner on my Vista machine using the Vista utilities in Control Panel and it works fine. PC fax works good too. Everything works now after a little sweat, setup, and trial and error. Print quality is excellent. Speed is excellent. Scan quality is great. Copy quality is great. Power drain is noticeable (house lights flicker). Footprint is good for my desktop area. Stylish, modern design. Overall excellent machine so far. Buy.com has best price on OEM toner I could find.
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