Any inkjet is not going to like going for a long time without printing. BTW a 970 is a great work horse, and comes apart so one can clean the 'drip pan'. I have two of them.
I have a little init job that checks to see if the printer has done anything i a week and if not prints a little test line of a few vertical bars. That took care of the clogging sadly at the expense of paper. Before that a little soak on a wet paper towel for a couple minutes always fixed things On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Denis Heidtmann <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 12:43 PM, Keith Lofstrom <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 09:40:01AM -0700, Denis Heidtmann wrote: >> > > Thanks for all the replies. The printer is sitting not connected to >> any >> > computer. It goes through the alignment test, where the carriage moves >> > across the paper and a light shines down. I assume that this is locating >> > the paper edge. It then goes back and forth a couple of times, then >> > abruptly changes to self-test. After 10 or 20 more seconds it changes >> > to Initializing, ejects the paper, then goes back to the alignment test >> with >> > a request for loading paper. No ink appears on the paper. This endless >> > loop gives me no opportunity to try anything other than power-off. This >> > leads me to discount computer drivers, etc. as the issue. >> >> This is surprisingly like the behavior of my HP2605 color >> laserjet after we moved. >> >> The BIG MISTAKE was moving it with the toner cartridges in it. >> ( Three moves equals one fire, as the saying goes, things get >> broken and lost in the chaos of moving ). The second mistake >> was using a refurb toner cartridge from Office Max, which >> spewed little grains of red toner everywhere. >> >> Most importantly, a grain got into an optical calibration path, >> a pair of millimeter-diameter holes running through one of the >> plastic assemblies to an LED and a phototransistor. IIRC, my >> laser printer has four of these, and uses them to detect paper >> size and make tiny dots on the paper, which are measured to >> precisely align the colors. >> >> I am insane, so I took it apart down to the hundreds of pieces >> level ( color laser printers are complicated ), cleaned >> everything, and got it working again. >> >> Before cleaning the holes, the printer would calibrate repeatedly, >> then give up, with the colors misaligned by 5mm. After cleaning, >> it is lined up within a hairwidth. >> >> I doubt there are as many sensors on a cheap inkjet, but optical >> sensors are easier than switches, so HP may be using the same >> trick (and have the same vulnerabilities). If the former owner >> has dust or shedding cats, then the blockage may be something >> besides dried ink in a cartridge. >> >> Consider asking free geek if they will loan or sell you some >> partly used cartridges for this beast, for testing. >> >> But first you may want to do a deep cleaning. Cut-apart egg >> cartons double-stickied onto a board can hold all the little >> fiddly bits. These compartments correspond with notes in a >> notebook. HP sometimes has detailed service manuals. I've >> considered making many digital photos during disassembly, >> but so far sketches in a repair notebook have been adequate. >> >> Keith > > > Interesting. The Free Geek idea is worth a try. Taking this thing apart > with the idea of getting it back together is a daunting prospect. I used to > be very clever at such tasks, but my short-term memory is getting too short, > so I would need a video with instant replay to make a success of the > project. The lack of ink on the paper puts plugged cartridges high on the > list. > > A related question (if this printer never gets resuscitated) is what color > printers are on the recommended list? As a measure of our usage rate, we go > through cartridges on our present Deskjet 970 at the rate of one of each > type every 1 1/2 years. A pair of cartridges costs about $67. A combo > scanner-printer would be nice. Copy and Fax would likely not be used much, > if at all. > > -Denis > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
