Install a Brother LT-400 lower paper tray

My Brother HL-1450 laser printer is doing sterling service, hooked to my Synology NAS it’s a decent network printer, and what’s more I can print to it from my Windows 8, 7, XP and (yes!) Windows 98 PCs, over the network.

I located a used lower paper tray LT-400 and the supplier Cotswold Printers was extremely efficient and friendly to deal with.  Good old-fashioned service like that is nice to see.

The tray's a bit of a luxury item but I’ll use it to feed 90 gsm paper on demand. There were no instructions but it seemed easy enough to use: a small socket on the printer rear is for the connecting lead of the LT-400, and the printer simply drops onto the lower tray, adding 11cm to the height of the printer.

But, and here’s the big but, there’s something else you have to do to make it work, as I found out when testing, as I got one infuriating paper jam and snarl-up after the other. On the underside of the original Brother paper tray there’s a protruding plastic tab near the front. It matched the location of the paper damage.  You have to cut off this tab to free up the paper path, then the lower tray can feed paper properly.  I’d recalled something about that (can’t remember where) years ago, so I snipped it off with cutters and – lo and behold! – the LT-400 now works properly. I’m really chuffed.

Also you need to go into Devices and Printers / Printer Properties, device settings and ensure Tray 2 is now enabled.

You can now choose Tray 1 or Tray 2 when you print a document.

Here’s a photo of the plastic tab.

Snip off the plastic tab underneath the UPPER TRAY, to enable the LOWER TRAY to feed. [click to see]

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