Photosmart 8230. How do you Remove the print heads for cleaning?

[struthio]

Hi guys, I have a Photosmart 8230. After a few lines of printing the black ink fades to almost nothing, all the colours are perfect. There are no error messages. I have done the self cleaning and alignment procedures and wasted a lot of expensive ink. The test page comes out with streaks on the black only. It has been suggested that I take the print head out and immerse it in hot water as a last resort. The question is, how do I remove the printhead? or should I use it as a sea anchor!!

[Modeler39 · Accepted solution]

I just did this to a HP Photosmart 8250 which is in the 8000 series range. I assume they are similar. I was an appliance repair man and have done a lot of other tings in my life, so I decided to take a shot at repairing my 8250 rather than junk it. For 3 Years it was great, only one paper jam, and fast great photos, so I didn't want to give up on it. HP will not repair printers for us, I think because it is too labor intensive, and they can sell a new one for what it would cost.

I actually fixed my HP Photostat 8250. Its working but the color printing is not as good as it was, yet, but I am hoping that will improve as all of the colored inks work their way through the system.

Taking one of these apart and putting it back together is like a Chinese puzzle, so its appropriate that they are made in China. Most of the parts inside can be easily damaged if you are not careful. The covers have very clever ideas to their design and how they snap in place. Take your time with the covers and use small tools.

Getting it back in working condition is another matter. There is a 6 circuit pump and more than a few feet of tubing. I had the side covers off while I tested it and this pump seems to work in both directions. This pump is inside the left side cover. There is another motor with a timing wheel of some kind that stops and starts in both directions at the same time the printhead carriage is whipping back and forth printing. There are other motors also. These things are ingenious. It is surprising that I bought it for less than $100 on sale. It looks like a $1000 piece of equipment inside.

 It would probably be a good idea to not remove the left side cover, but if you do, be very careful around the clear timing wheel. it looks delicate. Below is from an email I sent to a friend and I am revising it to make sense. Remember this is something that really requires training to do this, but I see people today that have the guts to tackle all sorts of projects, so for what its worth, and you asked.

Under the right side cover is a motherboard, with a bunch of cables plugged into it, small, larger and even ribbon cables. I found it necessary to remove the motherboard. I had a bit of experience working on Canon printers and I would also suggest you take digital pictures as you go so you can view them on your PC. I am also going through this because I don't like being told we can get anything repaired correctly today, its ridiculous that these printers have become just more throwaways. If you want to do this, as a guide, I must have spent 8 to 10 hours doing this, but now I could do it again in 2, that is the learning process.

Once you get the top off the printer, you will see the printhead carriage. The carriage will be to the right side. The printhead is retained by two screws at the front, (take pictures) a spring clip at the rear and two screws that hold a plastic cover over the six ink hoses that plug into the printhead, its a manifold strip affair. You have to unplug the manifold to remove the printhead, but now I am not 100% sure its necessary to remove the printhead? The ink gunk you will see after you move the printhead to the left is no doubt most of the problem.

 Probably after the hot water treatment as described below, the built in printhead cleaner will be able to resume cleaning the printhead, after the hot water cleans the gunk from IT.

 I removed the printhead like I say below, but first do this. Under the printhead there is a little carriage with a patch of foam rubber that cleans the print head nozzles.This little device works back and forth while cleaning, but while it is parked, with the printer off, it is forward and you won't be able to move the printhead. Use a flashlight to be sure and you will see how to push the cleaner carriage  to the rear and then move the printhead carriage to the left. THEN, you will see the gunky ink mess that has accumulated. This gunky mess I think is the main problem. There are also some felt pads below the cleaning device to absorb some of the ink gunk. I don't know how the HP techs do this, but I used the hot water method below, I had nothing to lose. I would move the printhead first and then you can decide about removing it. I would make sure not to get any of the electronics wet and why I removed the motherboard and why I say take photos. Its hard enough to remember where the different screws alone go, when you are doing this. It can be done, mine is working, even if not perfectly, YET.  You need to be very careful with your fingers, because it is hard to find space to hold onto the printer and whay it might be a good idea to not remove the left side.

They are so complicated, its just a matter of time before they get gunked up with ink and the printhead begins floating in the mess. I had nothing to lose so I removed the printhead, carefully, taped up all the hoses so they didn't dry out, Then I removed the motherboard to keep it from getting wet, THEN I held the messy ink end under the HOT water in the laundry tub and flushed out enough ink to dye a bathtub full of water. The hot water worked well. Then I let it all dry out. There are some delicate procedures to all of this and it takes time. I think that is why its very hard to find anyone to fix them. Its labor intensive and probably why HP won't repair them.  The print section is the problem, and why I won't buy an All in One printer, Fax, and Scanner. I do buy the extended warranty's now. If you tackle this, take your time, take photos, and good luck. By the way, the 8250 uses O2 print cartridges, is that the type of printer you have, but a lot of this applies to other printers and other brands, and I bet I am not the only one to do this. Before I started this the diagonstics showed no problems, so I assumed it was the the ink aspect of the printer, and not an electronic of mechanical problem. I hope this helps.

----- Original Message -----

[struthio]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have a crack at it over the weekend. As you say, its **bleep** or bust!!

Thanks again, Struthio

[Modeler39]

You are welcome, maybe you will have better luck than me. For others that might be reading this thread, my 8250 was starting to work properly, but then the Light Cyan cartridge ran out of ink suddenly, so I replaced it. Now I get the "ink system failure" error, and the printhead is "floating in an gunky ink mess again". It seems like I might need a new printhead? Whatever happened, my printer did seem to quit rather suddenly, so even though I cleaned out the ink mess, I wasn't 100% sure I had it fixed. I did have my fingers crossed.

[montagi]

Hi Modeler39

I have an 8230 with the ink error '0xc18a0406 ink system has failed'. Very frustrating as the printer has (had..) excellent print quality and features, it is just over 3 years old and has only printed 84 pages.... we purchased new HP ink after it looked like the ink had expired (again..) thinking that was the only problem and now this! 

I have tried the documented resets in various order, and head clean through the maintenance menu, factory default also through the hidden service menu etc. Eventually disassembled the printer and pulled the motherboard to remove the CMOS battery, left it out for 10 mins and then reinstalled. Checked the left side of the machine and found a large white plastic cog floating around inside the case! It has a hex centre and appeared to be the ink pump cog, have reassembled it onto the minipump shaft and hoped all our problems were solved.... No way! fire it up and it still has the 0xc18a0406 print system failure error whenever you try to print something, followed by print carriage jam errors.

The printer was not used for at least 6 months, is it possible it is dried ink blocking the lines, if so how do you remove the print head/ink pump without wrecking the printer?and what is the best way to clean them out. I see you used hot water on your 8250 print head, is it possible to use compressed air down to line from the ink reservoir for the 8230?

[montagi]

BTW - All the diagnostics were done stand alone today. I removed the USB cable and ran all the diagnotics through the printer menus, all failed when trying to print results.  Initially the printer was connected to an XP machine, my laptop runs Vista but the problem doesnt look like host software or drivers, its on the printer itself..

[donaldc]

Thank you Modeler,  You have given me the courage to tackle my printhead. I dont want to junk my printer as it has been super up to now. I have also been through all the proceedures for getting rid of oxc 18a 1010 to no avail. So here goes !!