Brother mfc845cw Had a paper jam. I cleared the paper jam, but when I went to print I get an "unable to print 50" error or an "unable to print 30" error. I looked up solutions, one mentioned an encoder strip, but I am not sure how to open up the printer to do that.

See picture how to do that :-)

Okay. Those postage-stamp disassembly pictures are just ridiculous, so here's a better description of the process.

1) Lift cover. Remove the two plastic panels covering wires. Mark down position of cables then remove them, and remove the now-freed top scanner section entirely.

2) Remove screws from top plastic shell. There's two in the back and four in the front. There's also two plastic tabs in the front that must be bent aside before you can remove the top shell.

3) Gently put the encoder strip back in its plastic guide. (the posted pic is actually a decent illustration of it.)

Confirm Success on a 440CN

Contrary to previous post, no need to break any clips whatsoever...

1) Remove Plastic wire covers from inside printers, and release plastic stay on lower edge, tilt cover to 90 Degrees
2) make a note of where each connector goes
3) release the Ribbon and 3 Multicore cables, removing grounding screw, then remove scanner module by sliding it off the hinges at 90 degrees.
4) Remove Three Front Panel Screws, carefully leaver front panel upwards releasing front side clips.
5) Remove front panel by disconnecting ribbon and wireing on both sides.
6) Remove 6 Screws (2 on back, three at front and one middle right
7) Carefully remove speaker cable (Red Connector) and lift up plastic casing, leaving printer uncovered.
8) Re-Seat Encoder Strip.
9) Re-assemble in reverse and Hey Presto.

All Cured. Hopefully!

The solution above all work except it's really difficult to remove the cover or the screws. After playing around for about 2hrs; I did find a simple solution afterwards.
1. Leave the printer powered on
2. Lift the cover you move the printhead all the way to the left
3. You will notice that there is a 1" x1/4" **** on the left side; move the printhead to the left so you can see the RED led light
4. You should notice that the clear plastic guide no longer fits into the encoder strip; use tweezers and place the guide back into the encoder strip.
5. This will solve the problem.

Thanks everyone! This also worked for my MFC-5460CN which was also showing a PRINT UNABLE 30 and PRINT UNABLE 50 after a paper jam.

Be sure to follow the advice of the other solutions to mark down / diagram the cable hook ups. I would also mark down the screw locations and sizes.

The blue plastic arm that holds the printer cover open can be gently pulled / twisted out of the hinge hole so that the cover can be completely removed. Do this where it connects to the cover, and not the base.

I was thinking the encoder strip was going to look like some sort of ribbon cable. I might describe it more as a clear plastic strip that the print head "rides" on.

I didn't even notice the strip until I bumped it with my fingers and it fell back into place on it's own.

MFC-845CW - Easy Fix for "unable to print 50" error or an "unable to print 30" error.
1. Lift large cover (under copy tray)
2. With thin flat screwdriver, place in thin holes surronding the L-shaped plastic cover (surronding the USB connection) and lift the L-shaped cover off. The communication tape is not within the plastic guides. Carefully place the tape within the plastic guides and pop the L-shaped cover back on. Clse main cover. DONE

Thank you everybody who posted here.
I am a proud owner of MFC5860CN again now.
I was printing and all of a sudden paper jamed. I cleard it and LCD displayed error: "Print unable 50".
I contacted Brother immediately and they said because the product is out of warranty, it will cost me £80 for engineer's visit and repair which is beyond of cost of this machine now.
I read all the above helping steps and finally i'm back on the track with my MFC.

If you have probelm with the MFC 5680CN, you can follow the steps that I followed:

1. Unhock the top part and the blue plastic strip that stops the top part from falling, seperate it from the machine. Undo the top part of the plastic bit first rather than the bottom one.

2. Take apart the plastic shields x2. 1st one is on the wiring and 2nd one is on the plastic data ribbon that runs along from the hinges of the top part into the machine.

3. Undo the wiring and open all the screws. Take apart the front section (LCD).

4. Take off the cage which is left behing on the top of the machine.

5. You'll find a plastic (transpartent white) strip running along horizontally. Fix it in a proper line.

6. Reverse the above steps to setup the machine.

Congratulations. You've done it....

Hi Guest

Thank you very much, I fix this problem! It`s veru good solution!

If the encorder strip is twisted or has any debris on spot on it the unit will malfunction. You may need to take it to a service center. The encorder strip is not accesible without taking the unit apart.

Hi I dont have a solution BUT I did follow all the suggestions above and the first time I didnt put the clear ribbon in the right slot and it still showed the "unable to print 50" and i was disappointed so I went back in again and gave it another go and it worked!!!!!!! Thanks so much, all I can say is that its funny how you can perservere when you have to!!!! Thanks alot everyone, saved me heaps!!

The top to mine doesn't come of. Any suggestions? 

Hello Everyone,

This was a great help with fixing a MFC-660CN printer that had the same error codes.

To fix the problem without resorting to tape you can do the following;

1. Turn off the power!
2. Put your fingers inside the gap next to the print head and you will feel a thin cable that runs horizontally paralell to the hole.
3. Push the cable up so it is flat against the plastic moldling and pull it toward the back of the printer.
4. Move the cable forward so that it relocates back into the slot where you would place the tape using ths method previously describe.
5. Turn the printer back on and check that the error code has gone.

It took several attempts to get it back into the correct slot, but took about 5/10 minutes once you figure out which bits go where!

Have fun!

Tried this for a 440CN:

undoing the screws was ok, but removing the cover was a whole different story.
I ended up running a screw driver along the sides, between the plastic cover you are trying to remove and the chassis it is appears to be attached to. You will find there 2 a 3 anchor points each side. These are "hooks" pushing from the inside out. (think 1 broke 1 in total). For the rest you are trying to get this transparent plastic cord in a black "v" guide rail. it's function? h3ll nows.

But it sorted my Error 50

You can remove the hinge pin for cover at the base and open cover further then just lift on plastic and gently slide the long ribbon in between the slots works fine without removing hole lid

Hello , i had the same problem,  but after lifting the plastic on top of the encoder strip with one hand (see pic above) and strip it with 2 fingers of the other hand back and forth and tried about 3 or 4 times then suddenly after closing the printer it done some calibrations and see the error is gone and looks like forever. (I never took the unit apart..) I am very happy now :-) i printed since over 1000 prints and no problems anymore...