[dms-discuss] HP 1050 DesignJet Printer Fixing (In Progress)

[dms at dabrado.net]

On Sat, Nov 02, 2013 at 06:14:04PM -0700, Sam Hanke wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I currently was looking at our HP DesignJet printer and have noticed a few symptoms:
> 
> -For one thing, there does not seem to be any ink cleaner. from what I could tell, the cleaner consisted of a black sponge. In order to solve this problem, I placed a wadded piece of paper towel into the crevice where the black sponge would be. That did not make the printer work.
> 
> -After opening up the back panel of the printer, I noticed that there were four tubes, each tube corresponding to a different ink type. The tube that was fed to the Black ink cartridge did not seeem like it was full of ink; in fact, there was a noticeable area where there was no ink when compared to the other three tubes. Right now I am not sure whether this is because of a blockage in the tubes or because there is a lack of ink in the cartridge.
> 
> Just a heads up of what I have done so far.

Thanks for the info!

Just a few other things to note:

  - The specific printer is an "HP DesignJet 1050C"
  - You can find the PDF manual here:
    http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?product=60689
  - The error reported for the black printhead is "FAULTY 14"
  - Sam is referring to the tube that carries the black ink is not full, unlike the tubes for the other three colors (visible when removing the panel behind the ink cartridges).  Even so, the printer itself doesn't report the black ink as "LOW" on its display.  For whatever that is worth. :)
  - To start from a known state, we removed the print heads, cartridges, and cleaners, turned the printer on, and then proceeded as the manual instructs for installing new supplies.  This is also when we found the black cleaner to be missing its sponge.  At the end of this procedure, we see the "FAULTY 14" on the black printhead after its goes to check the printheads (it also reported the same error before doing this procedure).

- Braden