Frigging Hewlett-Packard printers.

[John Corliss]

Three times now, and with various models and for no apparent reason, I
have seen the print heads slam all the way over to the left and from
that point on, this is the default printer head location. The printers
are no longer functional. This morning, it finally happened to my
beloved 855C and now, that printer is history.

Has anybody else seen this kind of thing happen to a Hewlett Packard
printer and if so, is there a fix of any kind?

TIA.

 

[ChiRul]

855C

As a starting point, check this D.I.Y. forum for useful
information:

http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/search/forums?f=&q=hp+855c

ChiRul

 

[Noozer]

Three times now, and with various models and for no apparent reason, I
have seen the print heads slam all the way over to the left and from that
point on, this is the default printer head location. The printers are no
longer functional. This morning, it finally happened to my beloved 855C
and now, that printer is history.

Has anybody else seen this kind of thing happen to a Hewlett Packard
printer and if so, is there a fix of any kind?

Just a guess, but my folks ended up with a new printer every six months or
so for about 5 years, for free, from Future Shop for similar reasons.
Extended warranties can be good for something.

It seems that HP's are really bad for collecting dust and gumming up the
innards.

 

[mhaase-at-springmind.com]

Three times now, and with various models and for no apparent reason, I
have seen the print heads slam all the way over to the left and from
that point on, this is the default printer head location. The printers
are no longer functional. This morning, it finally happened to my
beloved 855C and now, that printer is history.

Has anybody else seen this kind of thing happen to a Hewlett Packard
printer and if so, is there a fix of any kind?

Do a google search on it....it's actually pretty common.

On one model (maybe not all), the fix was to clean that (almost) clear
plastic strip that runs across the inside of the printer. The head
uses the marks on that to determine its position, and if the strip
gets dirty, the head can't tell where it is, and
zzzzziiiiinnnngggg.....SLAM!

M

 

[John Corliss]

*sigh* Now that I re-read what I wrote, it sounds like there wasn't any
reason for my problem to occur. Actually, what happened is that the
rollers were dirty and sucked a sheet in diagonally. The resulting paper
jam caused the problem with the print heads.

Just a guess, but my folks ended up with a new printer every six months or
so for about 5 years, for free, from Future Shop for similar reasons.
Extended warranties can be good for something.

That's where I bought the printer all right but after I did, Future Shop
went out of business in this area (So.Ore.) Regardless, I didn't get an
extended policy and even if I had, there weren't any 11 year warranty
extensions available 80)>

It seems that HP's are really bad for collecting dust and gumming up the
innards.

This is true, but I have cleaned it out with a probe and patience. The
cartridges drip ink into a kind of square tube if memory serves. Over
time, this builds up into a pillar of dried ink that starts rubbing on
the print head and causing smearing on prints. Removing that "pillar of
ink" ended the smearing problem.

However, back to my problem....

 

[John Corliss]

As a starting point, check this D.I.Y. forum for useful
information:

http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/search/forums?f=&q=hp+855c

Excellent! Thanks very much.

 

[John Corliss]

Do a google search on it....it's actually pretty common.

I suspected as much. And it's not unique to my model. Saw it happen on a
HP 600 series and also some 600 series multi-function.

On one model (maybe not all), the fix was to clean that (almost) clear
plastic strip that runs across the inside of the printer. The head
uses the marks on that to determine its position, and if the strip
gets dirty, the head can't tell where it is, and
zzzzziiiiinnnngggg.....SLAM!

Unfortunately, I was pretty frustrated yesterday and forgot (really!) to
mention that a paper jam caused the print head problem.

Time to get out the old boolean though, as you suggest. Thanks for replying!

 

[John Corliss]

Three times now, and with various models and for no apparent reason, I
have seen the print heads slam all the way over to the left and from
that point on, this is the default printer head location. The printers
are no longer functional. This morning, it finally happened to my
beloved 855C and now, that printer is history.

Has anybody else seen this kind of thing happen to a Hewlett Packard
printer and if so, is there a fix of any kind?

TIA.

I fixed it!!! Found the solution on this page under "What if the printer
carriage is stuck?":

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&docname=bud09144#N397

They even have an illustration that's exactly like my printer.

Now I have two printers. Bought a Canon PIXMA iP4300 yesterday (where in
the WORLD do they come up with those names?)

My thanks to Chirul for the starting point.