printing - HP designjet 500 printhead allignment issue
2014-07
stackOverFlew
After replacing the printheads,the machine flashes the exclamation mark on the
yellow printhead saying that it is worn out (on the new printhead). All
of the other ones have their status as "inserted". Since acquiring the
printer, we replaced the belt, the interconnect cable, the ink tube
system, and the ink supply station. The printer finally prints, but the
patterns come out like this (the pattern appears to be staggered by 1 mm)
and the machine says it failed to
align the printheads. When the carriage moves, it seems as though there
is a slight lag between how the belt pulls the carriage and its
movement. What should we do to proceed?
The machine is a designjet 500 42".
Questioner
We have a HP Color LaserJet 2605dn at work that recently lost its mind. The red and blue colors are offset from where they should be and producing a rather trippy 3D look. I've performed a manual calibration through the menus and poked at just about everything I could find. These toner cartridges are not new (as you can see they're about 50% used) but only just recently started this problem. They were working great up until this error appeared. It happens on mac, pc, and via the printer menu printouts so I don't think it's a driver problem. The printer has been restarted and reset and is running the newest firmware.
Anyone have any ideas?
karel
I tried everything suggested for months to fix the misalignment of the colors. I finally took it apart and cleaned the mirrors. No change! I stumbled on this fix today and it worked. It took me all of 10 minutes and now my printer prints beautiful color again! I guarantee you the repair people know this trick and would charge you plenty. Go to this link and do exactly what it tells you in step-by-step order:
http://printers-repair.blogspot.co.il/2014/01/hp-color-laserjet-2605-colours-out-of.html
It states that you could lose all your printer settings, I didn't lose a thing. Anyway, print out all of the config. pages anyway. After you do the NVRAM Config., the red will still be off a little. Do the color config (tells you how in the beginning) and the colors will now be perfect! Why doesn't HP tell you about this? You will now have your color printer back.
Raivis
I solved my problem by Cailbrating the printer colors Go to something like this on the printer itself: Main menu -> Settings -> Print quality -> Calibrate -> Calibrate now
TomB
It appears that this is a fairly well known issue with this printer.
The webpage HERE lists a detailed, step by step solution. Not 100% sure this is the same as your issue, but it sure sounds like it.
Also, if you are using non-HP Toner cartridges this can occur as well.
RussellW
I had this same printer. As TomB noted, this is a very common problem. My symptoms were exactly the same after installing new cartridges. I attempted new, official cartridges, basic cleaning, tearing the printer apart and cleaning.
I also took the printer to a repair shop. A new board may fix the problem, but I have seen online reports where the problem is still unknown and a new board does not necessarily fix it.
Based on the cost of new color laserjet printers and the total costs for repairs, I considered repair a wash and bought a different printer.
gnbatten
Sorry guys, but the original answer listed here was of no help at all, as the website which the referenced answer was hosted on at some point no longer exists.
I managed to find the following solution myself in a servicing manual for the 2605DN - I hope it helps others, it did with my problem.
NVRAM initialization
CAUTION - initialization will wipe any user defined information such as static IP addresses and other custom configuration details. Before proceeding further print a configuration page, which contains network setting information.
NVRAM init will perform the following functions: 1. Resets all customer-accessible menu settings via control panel and software back to the factory default settings. 2. Resets the language to the value set at the factory. 3. Resets the default media size to cold reset media size. 4. Resets the symbol set to PC-8.
Use the following procedure to execute an NVRAM-init: 1.Turn off the printer. 2.Press and hold the select (tick) and cancel (cross) buttons. 3.Turn on the printer. 4.When you see the message Permanent storage init displays, release both buttons.
When the NVRAM init is complete, the printer will return to the Ready state.