DesignJet 130 not printing colors correctly

[GSMilo]

My five year old DesignJet 130 will not print red correctly (streaky yellow) and a few other colors a a little off. 

I cleaned the printheads and ink cartriges with distilled water as directed and get one or two decent prints (I'm printing banners on ARCH D paper) but then it reverts. I replaced all six print heads and got one good banner with red, then back to the streaky yellow.   The pprinter and the Support Assistant show thai I have ink. 

I usd the HP Support Assistant Print and Scan Doctor but it did not remedy the problem. 

I do not have the System Maintenance Utility to clean and align the heads.  Apparently this is not available for a Windows 10 system.  I did find an earlier  version which I download and installed but when I open it I get the error message that "the utility exited because it cannot communicate with the printer",  in spite of the fact that it is connected via USB and I can print to it.  

I use this printer both for my personall engineering business and large format photo printing.  This printer was pretty expensive plus I just dropped another $330 in it for the six printheads. 

Any suggestions?

[davidzuts]

Do a google search for the hp dj130 service manual and download it. There are some routines you can run using the buttons on the control panel of the left side. One item you may need to do is to prime or purge the ink tubes. If that does not work, then you may need to use a syringe to draw ink for each printhead to make sure there is no air in the tubes.

[GSMilo]

Hello Davidzutz

The main problem is red.  It comes out streaky yellow.  I replaced all the printheads and then the yellow ink cartridge when it went empty.  The magenta shows low so it is on order.  I believe red is made from Y and M. 

I ran the alignment and all three clean utilities. Got one good print then back to streaky yellow, sometimes orange. 

An new problem now; every time I turn the printer on it does the alignment. 

Thanks for your advice. 

[davidzuts]

Yellow could be a problem with your printer as it was always an issue of the yellow tube getting clogged on this model. As I mention above if you have access to a small syringe you need to open the carriage cover like you are replacing a printhead and remove the yellow printhead. Now using the syringe stick it in the rubber fitting in the front where the pin from the printhead goes and try to draw ink. You will know if you have an issue if you can not even draw the plunger of the syringe where you try and it sort of pushes back at you. If that is the case most times the tube assembly needs to be replaced. Some people have had success where they load the syringe with windex and try to get just a little of it into the tube and let the printer sit overnight so some of the windex works it way to the clogg and frees it up so you can use the syringe the next day to purge the yellow tube. I have not had success and always had to replace the tube assembly,

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