T525 black not printing, even though ink level shows as nearly full

[PaulKraemer]

Hi,

I have an HP DesginJet T525 36 inch wide printer.  I have not used it in quite some time (my guess is approximately 1/2 year).  When I look at the ink cartridge status, it shows the ink levels as nearly full for all four colors (yellow, magenta, cyan, and black).  Despite this, the printer does not appear to be printing black.  When I use the printer's  touchscreen interface to print an Ink Level Report, it comes out like this....

... I have tried cleaning the print heads.  When I did this, I noticed that the printer offers several cleaning "levels".  After the first level cleaning, it allows you to proceed with a second level cleaning if you still feel the print quality is unsatisfactory.  I proceeded through three levels of cleaning, and I am still getting the same results as shown above when I print the Ink status report.  (I still cannot print black).

If anyone here can suggest something I can do so that I can print in black again, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,
Paul

[HJ47]

Hi,

Your Black printhead is clogged. The black print you see in the print is made of a mixture of CMY.

Please remove the printhead and clean the contacts if it is not helpful then replace the printhead.

Thanks

[PaulKraemer]

Hi HJ 47,

Please pardon my ignorance, but can you please tell me where I can find the recommended procedure for cleaning the printhead contacts on a Design Jet T525?  I have attached a photo of my black 711 ink cartridge.  It is not clear to me if this "ink cartridge" has a built-in "print head", or if the "print head" is an entirely different part?  If you can clear this up and let me know the way I can best clean whatever it is that I have to clean, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,
Paul

[perthblue1960]

That is just the black cartridge...there is a printhead as well...

similar model shown below

[PaulKraemer]

Thank you Perthblue1960,

I was able to remove my printhead as shown in the video.  Still hoping that I can get it working without having to buy a replacement, I used isopropyl alcohol with a lint free wipe to clean the area where I have pointed the red arrow to below....

After doing this, I replaced the printhead and my ink cartridges.  I am still not getting any black ink when I print an ink level report.  Looking at how the ink cartridges are pushed into the printhead assembly, it appears that the print head has a tube-like protrusion that gets pushed into a port in the ink cartridge.  It appears to me that this is how the ink is delivered from the ink cartridge to where it is applied to the paper.  It seems plausible to me that either the tube opening or the ink cartridge port that the tube goes into might be clogged.  If you can tell me if there is a recommended way I can try to clean or unclog this connection, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks again for your help.

Best regards,
Paul

[Repairatrooper]

Last ditch effort to revive the print head would be to place a small amount of warm water in a dish and then place the print head in the water (the section you have pointed to with a red arrow) Leave it for about ten minutes, then remove from the water, dry off completely. Then try printing again. The reason that the black clogs is that the black ink is pigment based and leaving the printer sitting for a long time results in black pigment particles separating from the carrier fluid and settling into the printhead and blocking nozzles. The colors are dye based so do not have that problem.