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Bad Capacitors need to be replaced.  I have found that the badcaps forum www.badcaps.net is a helpful resource on replacement parts.  As indicated above the TEAPO caps in green below C662 680uf 6.3V and C613 220uf 10V are failed in my printer as indicated by the bulge in the top.  The board is in the right side of the printer.

 

Its unfortunate that HP doesn't acknowledge this issue and replace the boards, but the fix is not too difficult for an enthusiast.  The badcaps forum has an interesting tale on how these caps came to be such a problem; it is not just an design issue with HP, but with many vendors and products that utilized the Taiwanese capacitors.

 

The photo below is from my C5180...

 

badcaps.jpg

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A "bulging cap" refers to a deformed capacitor, a basic and very common electronic component, usually in the shape of a small cylinder (like a miniature soda-can), which is found on practically every piece of electronis circuitry. The thing to note is the top of such capacitors, which should be flat. When such a capacitor goes bad, the flat top sort of bulges out into a dome-shape. So, a dome-shaped capacitor-top is a very reliable indicator of a defective capacitor.

 

Capacitors of this kind (electrolytic) have a polarity, which means that they are mounted in a certain orientation, which should be clearly indicated both on the PCB and the capacitor. This orientation must be maintained when a capacitor is replaced!

 

>>>Edit: Oops... pcully already answered this question in the previous post... never mind...<<<

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My printer is doing the same thing.Must be a design flaw. They should have a recall on them.

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My C5180 has the same problems....ink system failure, gives message that yellow ink cartridge is empty when it is actually full, won't even print black only, etc. I've tried all the fixes mentioned in this forum and nothing works. I just opend the right side panel to look at the capacitors in the board. These all look fine....no bulge on top, mounted straight, nothing leaking out of them, etc.

 

Looks like its time to scrap this not too old printer and buy a new one. Looking into Epson, Canon, Lexmark. Anything but an HP, as this is very dissapointing.

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Check again. The bulge doesn't have to be all that spectacular, and it surely doesn't have to leak to be defective.

 

The photo at the the top of this page shows exactly what I mean: the brown capacitor in the top left is OK, but the tops of two smaller green capacitors in the front are bulging, even if it's just a little bit. On my printer it was just one of them, and it bulged even less than the ones in the photo, so it took me a very thorough second look to spot it. But replacing it fixed my printer just the same...

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Comrep, you are my HERO !

 

Got the same problem as often discribed, above: Started with "Use Power On/Off for regular shutdown" and ended with looping HP-Sign-Bluescreens and a non-starting printer.

 

I exchange the described bulging capacitor and the whole printer works fine.

Costs: 60 Euro Cent for the new capacitor (used a 330µF with 25V - regular was 10V, comrep recommended 16V - basically the Voltage as long as more than the used 10V doesn't matter - the 25V has the same height and fits in) and 30minutes of work.

To reach the mainboard was as easy as described.

 

As said before: Hail to the internet and found froum solutions.

Comrep: you saved me a lot ! Thank you.

HP: shame on you, this is a predictable failure. Your strategy to sell more printers will fail, cause the next will not be a HP again. Never !

 

In German

Auch ich hatte das mehrfach beschriebene Problem. Zunächst erschien die "Benutzen sie den An/Aus Schalter zum Herunterfahren"-Knopf. Nicht einmal eine Woche später hing er sich im blauen Bildschirm mit dem HP Zeichen auf und der Drucker startete nicht mehr.

 

Ich wechselte den Kondensator, der "dicke Backen" machte, so wie von Comrep beschrieben. Hauptplatine ist leicht zu erreichen. Ich wählte einen 330µF 25 Volt Kondensator. Einauhöhe ist stimming und in der Breite (5mm Pin-Abstand) passt er auch. Ist auch unbeachtlich, welche Voltzahl man wählt (Comrep empfahl 16V), soweit er über den verbautem 10V Originalteil liegt, der unterdimensioniert ist.

Kosten: 60 Cent für den Kondensator, 1/2 Stunde Arbeit. Das Mainboard ist so einfach zu erreichen, wie beschrieben.

 

Man kann nur sagen: Ein Hoch auf das Internet und funktionierende Forum-Lösungen. Dies ist eine!

Comrep: Du hast einem eine Menge erspart ! Danke, Du bist mein Held

HP: Schande über Euch. Das ist ein berechenbarer Fehler gewesen, eine eingabuet Sollbruchstelle. Euer Plan, auf diese Art mehr Drucker zu verkaufen wird nicht aufgehen. Ich werde hiernach keinen HP mehr kaufen. Niemals!

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Cool write up dude, and right on point.  My C5180 worked fine for about 4 years, then started saying "ink system failure".  Was able to do a hard reset each time I needed to use it.  Eventually it started cycling on and off infinitely with the hard reset giving different results (but never fully turning on).

 

I was thinking I had a giant paperweight until I read your post.  Pulled the board and found that both of the green colored TEAPO caps are bad on mine.  One thing I do notice is that the TEAPO caps are rated at 10V (330uF) and 6.3V (680uF)... the lowest voltage on all other caps is 25V.

 

Also thanks for the link... I bought some caps and will report back on if it worked or not.  I've got a butane soldering iron I'm going to use.

 

However, my board must be a different revision then yours because it looks totally different and has different marks.  My caps are in position C228 (330uF 10V) and C163 (680uF 6.3V).  Board is upside down in this pic, I think yours was too:

IMG_3104 [1600x1200].JPG

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where can obtain said caps and how hard is it to remove and put them back on? thanks

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UPDATE: I FIXED IT!  Thanks to pculley's post above to look at the bad capacitors and a link to buy new ones, I fixed my printer!

 

I'm alright at soldering wires together, but this was the first time soldering a circuit board, so it took me a while to figure out how to desolder it.

 

I look at howtos and tried using solder wick to suck up the solder to remove the caps... didn't go so well.

 

What I did finally figure out was flip the board where the caps were facing down, then used needlenose pliers to grab and put downward pressure on the cap with one hand, and use the soldering iron to heat each pin alternately and used the needlenose to work the cap out.

 

Then I cut the super long pins from the new caps (you only need like 1/2" and they come about 2"...see pic below why you need to cut them... if you don't, the board is hard to put in and you need to bend the cap over) and put them into the holes of the board and put pressure on it with my thumb, then did the same thing with the soldering iron, alternately heating each pin hole until I had like 1mm of pin sticking through the board.  Since I sucked up most of the solder already, I could wiggle the caps around, so I had to add solder, which looks super ghetto.  Hopefully you don't have to do this as well.

 

I first tried to use my butane powered soldering iron, but the tip was too big, so I ended up using my super cheap 25W plug in iron with a super fine tip that came with a computer repair toolkit I was given when I was 14... probably can get them for just a few bucks online.

 

Anyway... here's the completed board top, bottom, and the printer working:  You can see the burn marks from trying to use my butane iron.

IMG_20110318_205330 [1600x1200].jpg

IMG_20110318_205344 [1600x1200].jpg

IMG_20110318_210856 [1600x1200].jpg

IMG_20110318_211459 [1600x1200].jpg

 

Heck yeah!

 


@z28jhoss wrote:

where can obtain said caps and how hard is it to remove and put them back on? thanks


The link in pculley's post: www.badcaps.net ... From what I've gathered online, the voltage doesn't really matter too much (EDIT: as long as the new cap's voltage is rated higher, but don't get too excessive), but you need to match the uF rating listed on the cap with the bad ones on your board.  I bought the Rubycon MCZ caps... I bought 2 of each kind just in case I screwed something up... all 4 caps with shipping cost me $7.

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Thanks so much for telling us how to fix this. I am not at all electronically or mechanically inclined, nor have I EVER soldered a thing in my life. BUT, I managed to fix my *&^%#^*% printer that I was about to throw out the window. So thanks....... :generic:  I actually registered on this forum so I could say that.

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