Fix for epileptic HP inkjet printer

Update on HP printer-problem "cure":

Some months ago, I reported that some strange problems with HP
printers can be cured by just swabbing the plastic strip that
runs just behind the print head for the width of the printer.

The strip is bar coded, and the printer uses it to locate
and to position the printhead.

The swabbing I mentioned consisted of dampening a q-tip
and then running it back and forth on both sides of the
strip for its entire length.

The particular problem I was hoping to cure was the printer's
often throwing a catatonic fit, seizing up, its lights blinking
back and forth, and its buttons unresponsive.

In my earlier message, I touted the swabbing as having fixed
the printer.

Well, it turns out that the problem recurred. I then tried
this swabbing remedy again, multiple times. And each time
the problem eventually recurred.

At one point, on the last of those occasions, while fiddling
with the printer, I absent-mindedly pinched the plastic strip
lightly between my thumb and forefinger, and ran my fingers
back and forth along the strip. Suddenly I noticed something:
Something that felt like a tiny pimple. It was located just
where the printhead would stop when the printer would seize up.
I surmised that this was accumulated crude that the swabbing
hadn't removed.

Excitedly, I ran some tap water on my fingers, then ran them
back and forth along the strip. With each swipe, the pimple
got smaller, until eventually it vanished. I finished up by
swabbing the strip with a q-tip, as described above. When I
tried the printer, it now worked flawlessly.

And it has worked flawlessly for the past four weeks.

Before this fix, I couldn't print more than five or six pages
before catatonia would set in. I have now printed fifty or
sixty pages without a hitch.

One caution: Don't pinch the strip tightly, or you risk
unhitching it from a hook that attaches it to the printer case.
Rehooking it is a little tricky. (The other side of the strip
is attached to a spring that provides tension to the strip.)

Epilog:

I decided to examine the strip on another HP printer, one that
was totally catatonic: It would just blink, and wouldn't print
anything at all. I found that the strip on that printer felt
like fine sandpaper along its entire width and length.

I applied the above bare-finger treatment until the strip felt
as smooth as silk, then followed up with a swabbing. When I
turned the printer on, it awoke refreshed and cured of its coma,
and it now acts and prints normally.

"Brothers and sisters, I usually bottle this fix and sell it
for hundreds of dollars, because people are desparate for
the soothing relief it brings. But today, brothers and sisters,
step right up, because today, yes, today, I'm offering it, to
you--yes, you!--for a song."

(How about..."Prints of Peace"?

Regards,

Roy

--- In apcu@yahoogroups.com, Roy Lipscomb <lipscomb@...> wrote:
>
> Here's a printer fix that I'd like to publicize, but I can't
> find a good place on the Web to post it. So maybe someone
> here do that for me.
>
> Some HP printers have a strip of "plastic linguini" behind the
> printhead. The strip has barcode-like markings that the
> printhead employs to position itself precisely.
>
> Most people here know that HP printer problems can sometimes
> be cured by wiping that plastic strip. I've myself have
> used that trick to cure several problems.
>
> But I've had a few problems that couldn't be cured that way.
> Most recent was one where I kept getting false "out of paper"
> error messages.
>
> My printer, incidently, is an HP 648C.
>
> After I cleaned the plastic strip several times, to no avail,
> it finally dawned on me that there's another element involved
> in reading that guide strip: The electric eye on the back of
> the print head. The electric eye can get dirty, too.
>
> So I decided to clean the electric eye.
>
> First, I attempted to slip a wet piece of printing paper between
> the plastic strip and where I figured the electric eye is. But
> the paper was too thick.
>
> Then I tried putting a few beads of water on the plastic strip,
> and then running the printhead back and forth over the wet
> spots. While doing so, I pulled the plastic strip forward
> to help the water make contact with the electric eye. Then,
> just to make doubly sure, I did the same thing while pushing
> the plastic strip in the opposite direction.
>
> That cured the problem.
>
> Before, I was getting a "paper out" error every page or two.
> I've now printed about fifty pages without any error messages
> or problems.
>
> Hope this tip is useful to someone else!
>


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