load midia every time plotter is turned on

[JoseLuisAl]

Anyone had similar problem?

I have an HP455CA A0 Plotter, and have to load midia many of the times i turn it on.

When i turn it on, it does the normal procedures, the ink cartridges carrier goes rigth and left a few times, the paper goes in and out a few times also, but in the end the midia LED turn on, and i have to click the blue key in the front of the plotter to load the paper and aligning it as if the paper wasn´t there already.

 Other times, i´m not able to load the midia at all. It flashes the Midia yellow LED, and even if i press the blue key, it wont load the paper in. In these case i have to turn it off for a few days, and then, if i´m lucky, i will be able to load and align the paper again. But if turned off and on again, the problem returns.

 Can you help me with these?

Buying an A0 plotter is very expensive!

Thanks

[davidzuts]

Could be an issue with the sensor on the right side of the carriage assembly. It sometimes get ink/dirt in one or both lens causing issues. You can try cleaning the area with a damp cloth. Another option if using roll media is to leave the plotter on all the time. It uses very very little power when not printing and once the media is loaded as long as it is not turned off it should work all the time. You may also want to clean the encoder strip that goes thru the carriage and has fine black lines. Do not rub hard but use a damp cloth to run the complete lenght gently and you will probably end up with lots of ink on the cloth.

[JoseLuisAl]

Dear Davidzuts,

Thank you very much for your answer!

I cleaned the sensor and the encoder strip, but unfortunaly, i had no results! It still have to align the paper every time i turn the power off and on.

 I can leave the plotter on all the time, but is not the same thing!!!

I can see the red ligth in the sensor on the right side of the carriage assembly. If it was defective, do you think it will have the red ligth turning on and off as the plotter is turning on and loading the paper? 

  I think that red ligth ist´s a mini laser.

Best regards

[D Hook]

You should not worry about leaving the printer on all the time.  I have one in my office I haven't shut off for years!  Only time it gets shut off is when it throws an error, which isn't very often.

[JoseLuisAl]

Dear Dr. Hook,

Thank you for your answer!

I believe in you, but,....however,.....it is winter time in the place where i live,....there are storms, with lot of rain, wind and thunders, it happens some times power goes off and on during the storms. At these occurrencies, i always try to disconect from power electronic equipments, the plotter is one of them.

 I really would like to fix the problem permanently, in my plotter.

 Can you help? Should i get a new sensor?

Best regards

[davidzuts · Accepted solution]

You are dealing with a very old plotter.  Plotter came out over 20 years ago. The issue with the sensor is not just limited to the red light you see and that is only half of the sensor. The other half is the receptor which receives that light coming back off the edge of the paper. You can get them on ebay from Hong kong and China and you can also get from US source for more money, Below is a link for one of them.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-DesignJet-SIZE-D-OR-E-450C-430-LINE-SENSOR-C4713-60039-3-CARRIAGE-LED-LI...

[JoseLuisAl]

I bogth a new sensor on ebay, from china.

When it arrives i will post again!

Thank you for your help so far.

best regards

[JoseLuisAl]

Good news! 🙂

The sensor arrived a week ago, i installed it today. Now the plotter is workimg fine!

 Dont need to load the paper everytime i turn it on!

 Thank you all of you, speacially thanks to davidzuts.

thank you very much.