Designjet 111 + Jetdirect 620n = 3 weird prints on every startup

[bananakid]

Hello everyone,

I've installed HP Jetdirect 620n network kit to our HP Designjet 111 Roll plotter. Now whenever I turn on the plotter it prints out three pages with strange symbols:

I can't tell if they are test pages or alignment pages (those look different). Printing three strange pages takes weirdly long: plotter waits around 2 minutes in the middle of plotting every sheet. This happens no matter if I have my network cable connected or not (same thing with USB) so that might not be related to Jetdirect 620n (I will remove Jetdirect & test tomorrow). We've moved recently so there might have been some hard handling while moving the plotter. Please help me to fix this issue. I have tried aligning heads and colors (or whatever you call it) from plotter's web interface (I can access both configuration and maintenance web interfaces using IP address & Google Chrome). Here's what test prints made using UI look like...

Paper Alignment Test Print (after printing it says to put it back to printer somether so it could "scan it" but I have no Idea where to put it!):

Image Quality Test Print:

Oh and in printer configuration inside Jetdirect 620n web interface I see a strange line "Print Alignment: No" (or Paper Alignment, I forgot my phone at home to take a picture).

I only have found one similar post with no answer: http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/LaserJet-Printing/Designjet-111-Test-Page-Always-Prints-When-Starting-P...

Please help!

[davidzuts · Accepted solution]

The network card has nothing to do with your issue. Looking at your last print I assume you just use the plotter for black and white plots. Well this is a color plotter and the pages you are getting when you turn it on are indeed printhead alignment pages. The reason you get three is because it looks like your color printheads do not work. The printer will attempt to get a good alignment 3 times if it does not get one on the 1st try. Once it has a good alignment it will not try to do another unitl a printhead is replaced. You have 2 choices. You can go out a purchase the 3 color printheads that are bad and you will get a good alignment on the 1st try and you are done with it. The other option is to hit the cancel button after the first print starts and then the cancel button again as the 2nd and third try to start. Once the printer is done you then leave it on all the time because once you turn it off and then back on you will have the same thing happen again.

[bananakid]

Thanks for explanation, davidzuts! I've figured out this on my own yesterday (read the manual) but couldn't edit or delete the message. The reference to Jetdirect 620n has nothing to do with the issue indeed. It just happend so we've moved to another place and plotter wan't used for 1,5 months, and the very first time I started plotter was after upgrading it with network interface. So that's just silly coincidence!

However I've googled and found out there's a good chance to fix the printheads (since it seems there's almost nothing to be broken there, they just get dirty). Maybe a couple of YouTube videos will help someone to get started (first one is something I'm going to try later): https://youtu.be/8Q0rSakzJtg & https://youtu.be/yZOAdEqX0Oo (those aren't in English but are pretty self-expainatory).