Using nothing more than a phillips head screwdriver and a small lever to push tricky plastic tabs, the team removed every single component from the printer until nothing was left. After removing the rear panel and a pair of medium circuit boards that control most of the printer’s functions, they found this unique item: a humidity sensor.

They removed several more parts, including the small PCB with transparent circuits that holds the LCD, the power board, the entire belt assembly, and several gears and motors. This brought them to the optics box containing two boards like the one above. The rear sides of the boards each have two laser diodes and one photodiode that is likely used in synchronizing data with the position of the page being printed. The optics box also yielded mirrors that reflect the laser, the motors that turn the mirrors, and several lenses, including a plastic molded lens assembly with three different lenses built into it.

When they were through with the optics package, the team moved on to the fuser assembly. Instead of using a quartz lamp to melt the toner like many other printers, this one contains a film resistive ceramic heater inside one of the rollers. After disassembling the fuser assembly, there was only one board left inside the remaining steel shell.

Evil Mad Scientist Labs posted more than 200 pictures in a Flickr photoset (all photos by [Windell H. Oskay]) showing every step of the process, and at the end of their article they list all the usable parts they got from the teardown. Taking apart the printer is only half the fun, though; we’re looking forward to what they build next.