January 12, 2020

My Brother HL-L2370DW Printer

I ended up ordering a Brother HL-L2370DWXL on 1-1-2020 purchasing it on Amazon for $200. On 1-12-2020 I began installing it. I follow the quick setup guide, installing the toner cartridge from the large package (that includes the drum unit). I put the high capacity replacement cartridge (in its sealed package) into a drawer for when I need it someday. I load paper, connect a network cable, plug it in, and turn it on. It fires up talking English.

As per recommendations, I make two setting changes immediately.

The method to turn off Deep sleep is: 
1. Go to General Setup then OK
2. Go to Ecology then OK
3. Go to Sleep Time then OK
4. While Sleep Time is displayed (should be showing a number in minutes) push the down arrow and then the back button at the same time. The Deep Sleep setting will then be visible
5. Turn Deep Sleep on/off by using the arrow keys.
6. OK to save Deep Sleep off"
After doing this, it again responds with "accepted".

Network setup

Instead of "General Setup" go to "Network". Then select "Wired LAN", then "TCP/IP", then IP, then set the IP number. This is a bit odd. The up and down buttons change the current digit. The "OK" button moves right, and the "Back" button moves left. When you are satisfied you hit the big "Go" button and it responds with accepted. After this, I can ping the unit at 192.168.0.13. Took less than a minute.

I edit the /etc/hosts file on my linux machine to assign the host name "brother".

Linux setup

I am running Fedora 30 linux. The CUPS package is already installed. The link http://localhost:631/admin brings up the CUPS web GUI. I click "Add Printer", supply a root password, and it offers me two choices under network printers: 
Brother HL-L2370DW series (Brother HL-L2370DW series)
Brother HL-L2370DW series (driverless) (Brother HL-L2370DW series)
I select the driverless choice and hit continue. I do not share the printer. It now wants me to select a model and offers a thousand choices. I select the second on the list: 
Brother HL-L2370DW series - IPP Everywhere
Brother HL-L2370DW series, driverless, cups-filters 1.22.5 (en)
Brother DCP-1200 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.3.3 (en)
....
On the next page I make once choice, selecting 2-sided printing in portrait.
It now says: 
Brother_HL-L2370DW_series (Idle, Accepting Jobs, Not Shared)
Under "maintenance" is a button to print a test page. It does! I get double sided output with the second side shifted down somewhat. The "lpr" command says "lpr: Error - No default destination." Under "Administration" on the CUPS web interface is a button to "set as server default", after doing this, CUP reports: 
Brother_HL-L2370DW_series (Idle, Accepting Jobs, Not Shared, Server Default)
Typing "lpr /etc/passwd" works just fine now.

What about printing a postscript file?

It just works. I type: 
lpr label_sheet.ps
lpr /u1/Minerals/Micromounts/label_sheet.ps
lpr topo.ps
And all give proper results.

Resolution

There is a menu selection for resolution inside of "General Setup". The options are 300, 600, HQ1200, and 1200. It ships with 600 selected and I am leaving it that way for now.

I will note that specifications for resolution include a line like: 

600 x 600 dpi, HQ1200 (2400 x 600 dpi) quality, 1200 x 1200 dpi

After making several test prints at 600, I changed the setting to 1200. I can see absolutely no difference, both in text (from postscript) and map files (from postscript). It is quite possible the resolution (especially for the maps) is limited by the source resolution. The one thing I do notice is that printing a map now takes perhaps twice as long (8 seconds instead of 3 seconds), which is no great concern to me.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!