HP CP5525dn - thin black lines

[Michal3D]

Hi

I have a HP CP5525dn and I noticed a problem with print quality. On printed pages there is sometimes thin black lines (in the same direction as the paper moves in the printer). Sometimes there is only one black line, another time there is 2-4 lines, or no lines at all. The lines always appears on same place on the paper (at the TOP on A4 when the paper is in Tray 2 in portrait orientation). Also I noticed, that it’s usualy folow this pattern:  there is couple of papers completely clean, then the lines starts slowly appearing until there are couple of very visible lines and then the lines starts to slowly dissapearing until the paper is again completely without lines. And this repeats all over again. Also the lines are not solid on the entire lenght of the paper, but on some place it is very visible and then there are places where almost dissapear.

Status of the consumable parts are as folows:

Black Toner - 50%

Cyan Toner - 70%

Magenta Toner - very low

Yellow Toner - very low

Fuser Kit - 80%

Transfer Kit - 80%

Toner Collection Unit - OK

Magenta and yellow toners are very low for months but still no visible degradation of print quality in these colors, so I did not replace them yet (these toners are quite expensive). Also toners are genuine from HP.

I tried the cleaning page, but it didn't help. The lines are also on the pages which comes directly from printer (like the status page), so no problem in drivers, PC or something like that.

Can someone please help me, what can cause these black lines? Every consumable part should be ok, according to status page, except the magenta and yellow toners, but as the lines are black, I don’t know if these colors toner can be the cause of this black lines?

This is the photo of these black lines:

Thank you

[Repairatrooper]

Lines across the page are often cartridge and defects that run in direction of paper travel are transfer belt or secondary cleaning roller. Run the print quality diagnostic pages as this will usually show the problem. Life count is not a great indicator as we have had transfer belts fail at 80% life left.

[Michal3D]

Thank you for reply, but that is what I did afraid, that it would be the transfer belt. I printed the diagnostic pages, but nothing shows on them. This 6 pages prints without any lines. It is difficult to diagnose this problem, because the black lines are not printed every time.
Anyhow, if it is the transfer belt, there is I suppose no other solution than buying the new one. It is difficult to replace it in this printer, or I should rather take it to the service?

Apart from that, there is possibly the other solution. This is A3 printer but I print 99% of time only A4, but the A4 in Tray is in portrait orientation, so it take up entire place. And as the lines appear on the top of the page, if I change the orientation of A4 in Tray to landscape, there is a pretty good chance, that the part which make the lines would not be even used, so that should solve the problem, at least for this time. But I heard, that it is not good to use the printer in this way, that not all drum is used, but I don't know why exactly. Because if it can damage the transfer belt, than it is not so big problem, because the transfer belt is propably damaged anyway. But if it could potentialy damage other part of the printer, then it would be better to replace the transfer kit...

[Repairatrooper]

Just to confirm that the lines are parallel to direction of paper feed. If so, then yes and this is intermittent then you are in early stages of a problem we saw quite a bit in the past, which HP seems to have reduced with changes in firmware. What you can try is to remove the transfer belt from the printer.  Link below is for an M775 but the belt is the same and the procedure identical.

https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/guid-27fcf8da-22c7-4d65-a765-2361f99ba94c_en_us_guid-4fc8d523-...

The drain for the waste toner assembly is on the right front (edge that goes in printer first) of transfer belt. There is a little shutter you can open, do this over a garbage can as waste toner is likely to spill out. If you do get a lot of toner coming out then you need to shake the belt, open the shutter to let more waste toner out. Repeat this until waste toner no longer comes out when you open the shutter, this can take quite a few repeats to remove all waste toner. If you are in luck, the mylar wiper blade on the belt is not damage and you will be able to print. If the page count on your printer is very low, I would contact HP technical support and raise a fuss. Also make sure that you update your firmware to the current revision.

[Michal3D]

Thanks. There is some space problem, so I can’t do something about it, because I don’t have proper access to the right door. I don’t know when I will have a time for such operation, but probably buy the trasnfer kit and replace it right away and hope that it will solve the problem. But I am actualy quite surprised, that this problem occur (if the problem is really in the transfer belt), because the printer was bought in 2013 and the transfer kit was replaced in 2016, so now again after 3 years, the transfer belt is worn out? That is quite unexpectedly low durability for such an expensive printer.

Anyhow, I checked the firmware version and of course it is very old (firmware date: 20120928), so I will try to update the firmware as well, even if I am little scared about it. But even that will not be that easy, because as I looked in the readme file, if I am correct, there is no option for updating firmware over USB connection. And my printer does not have a USB connector for USB flash drive, so the only way to update firmware is over network. And that means, that I have to buy LAN cable and connect it over it to update the firmware.

Don’t know when I will have time for all of this (now is the holiday time), but as soon as I will have some new information, I will post it here.

Again, thank you for help.

[Michal3D]

Finally I had some time to try something so first of all I replaced the two toners (magenta and yellow), which were in very low state for a long time. And also I checked very quickly the other toners as well and I found thin blue line on the edge of the drum of the cyan cartridge. I think that it is at outside of the printing area, but I don’t know if it should be there nevertheless.

And after I replaced cartridges, the printing problem is actually even worse than before. Now there are much more lines and it is not only black lines, but it change colors as well. But the location of the lines is the same as before and also sometimes the page is completely clean. But I have a feeling, that now there are more pages with lines.

I also connected the printer through LAN and did upgrade firmware and changed it to FutureSmart 3. It doesn’t look like it has any impact on this problem, but I think that it is expected, as it should prevent this issue not solve it, if I understand it correctly.

Unfortunately I still didn’t get access to the right door, so I cannot check the transfer belt.

[Alex-TATS]

Hi Michal3D,

Before replacing the ITB you can try cleaning it. Remove the ITB from the printer and then open the waste toner area of the ITB with a flatblade and then hoover the toner and also check its if its blade is not damaged or if there is any bit stuck there that does not allow the blade of the ITB to properly clean the waste toner.

I hope this may help,

Cheers!