How To Do Clean Cycle On Hp Designjet 130

Two years of use

iii/iii/2011: For a comprehensive update to what follows, click here. I have too extensively annotated one of the illustrations below and provided a click-through to an HP print quality document which helps with diagnosis of printing problems.

This article is of utilise solely to those using or contemplating purchase of ane of the Hewlett Packard 30/xc/130 DesignJet dye ink printers. Actually, even if you practice non have one only savor pithy comments, read on in any example, every bit it gives me a chance to unload on a brilliant engineering visitor that couldn't organize a beverage-fest in a brewery when it comes to diagnostic information.

It is now two years since I placed the HP Designjet 90 printer in service, and I remain delighted with this device. Certain, information technology just uses half-dozen ink cartridges compared to eight or twelve found in more recent printers, just in that location's no arguing with the quality of the prints this fine automobile makes.

I'm on my second or third fix of impress cartridges (depending on color) and when reprinting one of my pictures I ran into a snag.

Here's the problem:

Doubly irritating as I had just wasted a 24″ x 18″ piece of paper – I had gear up the job to impress while taking a shower and this is what rewarded my return. I thought it might exist a glitch in Aperture 2.0 so I printed from Photoshop CS2 and everything was pink, so suspicion fell on the printer.

The DesignJet series of printer (30, 90, 130) include a useful status panel telling yous about ink levels:

The vertical black confined denote ink level and the symbols that look like a felt-tip pen tell yous almost the status of the impress heads – one head per ink colour. If one of these is blinking it means the head is faulty and needs replacement. Or not – read on. They don't toll too much in the US – $35 – but it's non the sort of thing yous stock as a spare if you lot, like me, are an amateur low volume printer.

However, the status screen on my DJ90 showed all the ink levels were fine and none of the 'felt tips' was blinking, so I checked the HP web site. Now HP, you must know, is an applied science company which means they have one of the worst web sites imaginable. It wouldn't do for great engineers to write articulate instructions at present, would information technology, (real men practice not need instructions and God help women) and the HP Systems Maintenance Utility resolutely refuses to run on my MacBook. Eventually I came beyond HP's printer head cleaning instructions and applied these rigorously.

First, open the printer ink cartridge flap then open the cover for the printer heads when they have ceased moving. Pull the power cord now, and then remove all the heads. They are colour coded and then no mix-upwards is possible. I believe they are actually identical but, once loaded with dye, you don't want to switch these!

Using a coffee filter (these are lint free) and distilled water (not dirty tap water) wipe each caput.

You want to go along wiping with a moist (not moisture) filter until you get two clean ink streaks from the base of the head – the part that goes down into the well. That denotes good dye catamenia. You tin come across the twin tracks from the Magenta head in the picture higher up. Then wipe the contacts on the rearward facing (when in the printer) part of the head.

Next, wipe the receptor contacts in the printer equally shown below.

A lot of gunk comes out. I would guess I take fabricated one hundred 13″x19″ and xxx eighteen″x24″ prints since I bought the printer, to give y'all an idea of the use it has had. I was actually surprised to take this failure as HP keeps the heads warm even when the printer is off (as long every bit it's plugged into the mains) and I have not had any of the repeat bottleneck that I experienced with the Epson 1270. This is important as I tend to impress in batches and with this last print run the printer remained idle for three months. (I was working for the Usa Government, filling out income tax returns and sending them 50% of my 2007 income the better to feed the losers who increasingly dominate our once complimentary state, hence the inactivity).

A first print test showed a repeat of the trouble (the print was equally sharp as can be) but after a second cleaning the problem persisted. Additionally, I got three blinking head errors 2d time around, simply removal and reinsertion of the relevant heads stock-still the problem.

Don't make my error and permit the ink dry out on your fingers. I couldn't get it off with isopropyl booze and had to resort to an abrasive Scotch pad. I now have no fingerprints, a status that equips me for a life of crime. Perchance I should run for Congress?

Head alignment and diagnostics

OK, and then despite manual cleaning of the heads I was still having the 'pink part way through the print' issue.

In one case Apple's OS X Tiger (10.iv.x) was introduced HP failed to properly update its Organisation Maintenance Utility for Mac Bone X, meaning that when you fire it up you will get an error message. (Simply come across 'Follow up', below). Don't even recollect of calling HP for assist. Start, they will charge you for fixing their errors and 2nd, the chances of finding someone who has the reply is slim to none. Don't believe me – check their chat board. A lot of unhappy Apple tree users there. Maybe HP hasn't heard that creative people use Apple computers?

Notwithstanding, you can exercise everything that'south needed using the three buttons on the control panel by referring to this document. Though it says it'south for the 100, 110, 120 and 130 printers, it likewise works fine with the 90 model I take. And I'll bet it works for the xxx model, too, as the 30/ninety/130 range share the same ink cartridges and print heads. Too bad HP does not know about it!

Using this document you can run usage and data reports, make clean the impress heads (in addition to the technique illustrated higher up), lock the heads for send, align the print heads and – wait for it – switch off that piercing terminate-of-job cablegram which has irritated me from day one of buying.

And then by holding the Power button downwards and pressing the OK button thrice, I aligned the heads. Then, belongings the Power push button down I pressed the Cancel push button twice to force a 'Soft' Printhead Recovery (HP speak for flushing the heads). Sure plenty, the printout disclosed that the Lite Cyan head was non performing properly (the color bars were either discontinuous or completely missing and came with a large blackness 'X' at the bottom correct on the all 3 pages of the study). So I ran the 'Difficult' Printhead Recovery cycle by pressing both the Cancel and OK buttons sequentially twice while holding the Power button downwards. At present all was well. Y'all are looking for a cyan check (UK: tick) marker on the lesser correct of the written report and continuous tone in the test patterns. Yous tin can run these reports on regular viii.5″ x 11″ letter size newspaper – save your photo paper for pictures. The process takes several minutes, then be patient.

In case some yo-yo at HP deletes it, here's what yous need to know for future use:

The ink apply report is far more than accurate than the i provided past the LCD status bars on the front console of the printer.

Mine is not a network-capable version then the last choice is inapplicable.

Interpreting examination print results is addressed in this very poorly written document on HP'southward site. Take patience – they use some of the slowest servers in the world and the page takes a while to appear. That's when their servers are non downwardly, which seems to be much of the fourth dimension.

Yeah, I practice have an engineering science degree and, no, I practise not have dirty fingernails (just dirty fingers afterwards this job), facial hair or an inability to communicate conspicuously. Let'due south get out the last three to HP's engineers.

Follow-upwards:

Well, my 'repair' lasted a couple of prints then the problem resurfaced. I determined the Lite Cyan head was at mistake and ordered a replacement. Now all is well. No thanks to HP and information technology's poorly documented diagnostics. Hopefully this will help others using this fine printer who run into problems.

To run color test prints run the HP Designjet Organisation Maintenance utility going to Calibrate Color->Epitome Quality on the web page that will load (if you lot are lucky; if non, reboot and endeavour over again).

Here are the 'Before' and 'After' test prints – the second subsequently installing a new Calorie-free Cyan print head. As y'all tin can see, lite cyan is largely missing in cell D3 and the Green has trended to yellow in cell C3, leading me to conclude that the Light Cyan caput is at fault. Not that you can divine that from HP's on line 'diagnostic' illustration.

Earlier – faulty Light Cyan cartridge diagnosed. Plus head alignment is needed.

Afterwards – faulty Low-cal Cyan cartridge replaced. Head alignment withal needed.

HP says to align heads after any printhead change; in practice, run the above report first and if you encounter problems in the areas annotated, above, run the printhead alignment routine then. No bespeak in running it if not needed. In the above picture, the white vertical line in the big color chart and the magenta shading in cell B2 indicate that caput alignment is needed.

Had cell D1 been flaky, I would accept replaced the Calorie-free Magenta head. The other cells and their respective error conditions are addressed in HP'south referenced diagnostic certificate, which largely seems to forget about its six head printers. I don't know only I would bet that the 100, 110 and 120 models they reference use four heads and inks.

In one case the new LC head was in identify the printer ground abroad for a expert five minutes before existence ready to impress, with the hour glass displayed on the LCD screen on the front panel.

Hither is a after analogy from HP's spider web site which is a fleck clearer:

There's besides a print quality manual which you can download by clicking the image below:

Click to download

Making Systems Maintenance work on a Mac:

I finally got the HP Organisation Maintenance Utility to run on my MacBook. I first erased all the HP files in MacBook->Library->HP and in User->Library->HP, downloaded the utility and reinstalled information technology. If your Mac fails to answer to this approach the difficult key method described higher up is every bit as good and a lot less frustrating as you lot are non confronted with HP'due south constant page errors caused by mistakes in their code. The just thing that will non piece of work is the firmware upgrade, but and then we Mac users are just so much scum to the brilliant engineers at HP, no?

After changing the print head information technology is necessary to run the HP System Maintenance->Calibrate Color utility for each blazon of newspaper you propose using. If you cannot go the HP System Maintenance Utility to run you are out of luck. I did this for HP Premium Plus Photo Satin Best (bi-directional printing) and for HP Premium Plus Photo Satin Best Maximum Detail (mono-directional printing – slower). HP Premium Plus Photo Satin is the only newspaper I use in this printer every bit it looks not bad when mounted and has a slight sheen which allows retention of a decent contrast range without the specular reflections of glossy paper. The utility uses the HP's built-in spectrometer to maximize color accuracy by comparing a examination impress to what information technology ideally should be – a characteristic more often than not constitute on printers costing several times every bit much – similar the new, and very costly, Z3100 series. Each calibration run takes some 10-12 minutes and you must not mess with the printer while it is doing this. You must use examination sheets (letter size) of the paper you lot are calibrating the printer for something, amazingly, that HP'south on-screen instructions never mention.

Conclusion:

Suffice information technology to say that all ended well, and the 18″ x 24″ annual birthday snap of our son is ready for mounting and framing, after a 24 60 minutes drying menstruum to let the inks firm upward nicely. Oh! and one other thing – it was printed out of Lightroom, Aperture being softwara non grata in the Pindelski household.

Despite HP's lousy diagnostic instructions I even so remain over the moon delighted with the DesignJet 90 printer.

Update – iv/2009:

Some other head gave out – the banding in cells C2, D1 and D2 pointing to a faulty Lite Magenta printhead. It's nice to have HP's good diagnostic tools, fifty-fifty if the instructions are so poor.