HP 4250n: additional Paper tray not recognized

[WeinhoeppelZHTS]

Hello community,

i am new here and have a strange problem to solve:

our HP Laserjet 4250n printers dont accept additional paper trays.

We have several of these printers and several of the paper trays. And some of these trays (3 already) are not recognized by several of the printers.

But not all, one of the printer accepted 2 additional trays and works with them.

Another one isnt accepted in at least 2 more of the printers. Havent tested them with the printer where the others work, because that is productive environment so I cant intrude so easily.

Has anyone any idea or hint how to make the printer accepting the paper trays? It is neither visible in the printer driver nor in the device itself. I can scroll through the printer menu and only get tray 1 and 2, but no additional 3 or more.

Thanks in advance for hints and help.

The German HP forum could not help and suggested to ask here.

Michael Neubert

Service technician Weinhoeppel

[ShadowF29]

Check the cables in the slots at the trays and in the printer itself - they may not be physically connected.

[Repairatrooper]

Common causes are damaged connector on either the printer or the tray. Also make sure that you do not accidentally have 4200/4300 series trays that look identical but are not interchangeable. 

Performing a cold reset in these cases often resolves problems.

[WeinhoeppelZHTS]

Thank you for your information and hints.

It might be we have got the wrong trays. But how can we find out if that is the case? I did not find any usable number. There are some numbers but i cant read anything from them.

The connectors look ok, but I saw in the tray it quite moves around a bit. It is not firmly connected. I dont know if that is ok or not.

You tell about a cold reset in these cases. What do you mean?

Do you mean to reset the printer to factory defaults with the tray connected?

[WeinhoeppelZHTS]

Thanks for your hint.

You speak about cables in the tray or printer.

But in the tray there is no cable visible. There are black connectors above and below, where the trays and the printer are stacked on each other.

The connector on the upper side of the tray is movable around a bit in its position, not much but also not firmly connected. Dont know if that is ok.

[ShadowF29]

All right, the connector should walk slightly - this is the norm. As mentioned above, I forgot to mention that the trays are different.
At the tray, see party number: Q2440B - HP4250, Q2440A - HP4300.

And again, if you have one tray earned on the printer, then it should work on other printers too.

[Repairatrooper]

Tray identification is tough. The only visible difference is that the 4200 trays did not it have the lock on the trays that prevent pulling the tray straight out. If you happen to have a 4200 this is the easiest way to test the trays. A cold reset is performed by starting the printer and holding down the go button as soon as the memory count shows on the screen and holding until all three lights turn on steady. Then scroll through options till you see "cold reset" . This clears all settings. 

The 4200 tray is the most common reason we see that clients get this error.

[WeinhoeppelZHTS]

I can pull out the paper tray without any lock.

The only lock is on the side to prevent the whole tower to crash.

I dont find any part number to identify the tray, at least nothing with hp42xx or such.

There are some numbers around the tray, but nothing with a HP in it.

R73-5034 / CNBX25xxx

*7544Axxx* / RU5-8070

HP Material PN:4093-7618

found on different places.

So i should have the right tray for the 4250n.

When i find a non productive printer here where i can try out the cold reset I will do and try to get the trays alive.

Thx for your help so far you two.

[ShadowF29]

Q2440-67903 500-sheet cassette (with feeder) (tray 3) HP LJ 4200/4240/4300/4250/4350 according to the service manual trays are the same, but in fact there is a problem that 4200/4300 and 4250/4350 do not fit together if swap.
This is still infa:
HP 4200/4300 - R73-5034
HP 4250/4350 - R73-6006

[WeinhoeppelZHTS · Accepted solution]

Thank you all for your help.

I just got the solution from a reseller by phone today.

The tray for HP 4200 is named RU-xxx, the tray for our HP 4250 is named RL-xxx.

And RL is downcompatible to HP 4200, but RU isnt upcompatible to HP 4250.

So we only can buy and use the RL version.

We will get a circuit board for the trays we have to exchange them into the fitting one. Then the trays will be recognized by our printers. It is changeable quite easy, only screw off some screws, then we can change it and rescrew.