Skip to main content

Repair and disassembly guides for Dell printers.

43 Questions View all

I have a Dell E525W Printer. What is a CDT Sensor and where is it at?

What is the CDT Sensor and where is it at ?

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

Is this a good question?

Score 1
Add a comment

3 Answers

Chosen Solution

sale4utoo ( CTD ) = Color Tone Density Sensor 

Block Image

For directions on how to clean it etc., check on here

Was this answer helpful?

Score 5

5 Comments:

We need an actual photo. The diagram does not illustrate where it is accurately enough.

by

@abstracted Look at the age of the question and answer. Most people do not have CLJ's existing for exact reference photos. Unless someone has it in production and needs to do it anyway, it won't happen. I only somwewhat recently got to a point I could have a color laser and afford to own it and it took 3 rounds of failure to get one I like.

Check a similar looking Lexmark; Dell rebranded a lot of those. You can tell by the toner ;). Square-ish toner on the color series (usually on the right panel)=Lexmark, round toner=Xerox. For mono, it was 95% Lexmark/5% Brother; again, Brother and Lexmark drums are very different. The toner styles are also different (Lexmark=rounded, Brother=flat), as well as Brother having a corona wire that isn't considered "Maintenace free", which Lexmark does. You're supposed to run the wiper every toner change with Brother. The drums match this shape variation.

This is a Lexmark. "Dell Color" is Lexmark Unison too, by the way (unless it was a Xerox), but they both use Pantone colors so Unison vs Xerox has little matter. Dell just gave up badge engineering and just sells them as straight Lexmark and Xerox machines.

As much as I loved HP ColorSphere back in the day, the dynamic security printers abandoned that level of CLJ color performance. Whatever HP has now has lessons from ColorSphere, but Canon Color V2 and Unison are the superior systems today. I love the HPs for their mostly "don't cry about clone toner damage" policy*, but losing ColorSphere's consistency was a dealbreaker. I didn't want to deal with a well used machine with 150k pages+a potentially tired fuser. I'll HAPPILY take a mono 4000 series with 200k and just brush it off and run it at 500k+ without a care, but the color machines just aren't machines you disregard the counter on unless it has serious issues. Half a million pages gets expen$ive with color.

*OEM chips only since dynamic security; clones can be killed at ANY TIME, so never update the firmware with 3rd party. Old printers just nagged.

by

@abstracted check the original diagram in the original answer. It's the square holes.

by

It's actually rectangular. I see a dim red light inside the left access hole but not inside the right one. After cleaning both access ports with q tips, it did not fix the error... I'm wondering if there's supposed to be a dim red light on the right side one as well? Any thoughts out there?

by

@petermezes you are right. Pardon the geometrical differences :-)

by

Add a comment

Block Image

@abstracted these are the sensors in question specifically, but you should clean both. Canned air is also helpful. I do see a buildup on both. Also, use a long wooden handled Q-tip. The issue with how these Dells handle disassembly if that isn't enough is it requires partial disassembly to clean. I find the CS/Go/modern (IoT) Optras handle calibration a lot more sensibly unless it is so screwed up that you need to adjust the CMY color alignment manually which generally only ever happens when someone does an ID-10T and offloads their screwed up printer on the market and it takes a while for someone to buy it because the buyer needs to be comfortable with reading the SM, using diagnostic mode and adjusting it.

To this day I think the "Dell" printers were counterintuitive since they're badge-engineered with minor keypad changes, but you own it and it still works. Dell dropped this market (thankfully, it made no sense) so if say, I want a Lexmark I am probably already going to buy a Lexmark; why they entered this market is beyond me. You're asking for trouble when they break too because you need to try multiples of the same part from various models in many cases so it's not like if I need to change a panel on a GO line Lexmark I know you can use the 2/3 series interchangeably but the 4 series can't be.

Was this answer helpful?

Score 1

3 Comments:

Now I'm more confused. I'm sorry but your diagram is confusing. Do you mean the sensors are inside the square holes?

Where do you see buildup?

by

@abstracted check the original diagram in the original answer. It's the square holes.

by

@oldturkey03 I would clean both to be safe too, but that is just cautious me when it comes to failures like this.

by

Add a comment

@nick

Maybe you know by looking at a photo what I should be cleaning:

Block Image

I stuck qtips inside the holes and got some dirt out. I also rubbed on those round spots. But the CTD needs cleaning alert still pops up.

Was this answer helpful?

Score 0
Add a comment

Add your answer

sale4utoo will be eternally grateful.
View Statistics:

Past 24 Hours: 1

Past 7 Days: 16

Past 30 Days: 57

All Time: 2,073