Remove/clean printhead Envy 6052

[Mal_Content]

My printed pages are coming out blank. How how do I remove/clean the print head on my HP Envy 6052?

[Bob_Headrick]

The troubleshooting steps in the document here may help resolve black and color not printing on your Envy 6052 printer.  Note the printhead for the Envy products are built into the ink cartridge.

[Mal_Content]

1) The ink cartridges are original HP products and are 3/4 full. 2) HP suggests printing a diagnostic report, but I can't because my pages come out blank. 3) After running countless cleaning cycles I still get blank pages. 4) I have removed the ink cartridges and cleaned around the nozzles. More than once I received a message telling me I need to replace my printhead. So here I am looking for instructions on how to remove the printhead and, better yet, where can I buy a new printhead? For what it's worth, my printer is less than a year old and I've printed less than 150 pages of text and zero pages with photos. I've replaced the black cartridge once and I have a new color cartridge on standby. 

[Bob_Headrick · Accepted solution]

The Envy 6052 is an "Integrated Printhead  (IPH)" printer.  If you replace the cartridges you are automatically replacing the printhead as well.  An error message of replacing the printhead is rather confusing.  What is the exact wording of the message?

Envy 6052 will operate with a single cartridge installed.  I would suggest the following:  Remove the black cartridge and send a print job to the printer.  Does this come out blank?  If so, reinstall the black cartridge, remove the color cartridge and send a print job.  Is the page still blank?  If so remove the black cartridge and get two coffee cups.  Put 1" of hot (but not boiling) water in each cup.  Place the cartridges nozzles down (in the same orientation they would be in the printer) in the cups and allow them to soak for fifteen minutes.  Remove the cartridges from the water and dry the electrical contacts with a lint-free wipe,  A clean coffee filter works well for this.  Reinstall the cartridges in the printer and run a few (up to three) cleaning cycles.  Does the printer now print? 

If not I would suggest replacing the color cartridge with the spare and see if it will print.  If it does not then you likely have a hardware issue with the printer.  In that case, if your printer is less than a year old it should still be in warranty.  You can check the warranty status and submit a warranty dispute if needed as shown in the document here.

[Mal_Content]

Thank you for the additional instructions. I don't know the exact words regarding the need to replace the printhead, but if it comes up again I will forward a screen shot. When I read the words 'two coffee cups' I immediately thought I'm screwed if I need two cups of coffee. 0.o I'll get back to you with my results.

[Bob_Headrick]

Use clean water rather than coffee 🙂.  By the way, I should have mentioned the most common cause of blank pages with full cartridges would be powering off the printer from an external switch, or unplugging the printer before it has been properly shut down.  If the printer is shut off from an external switch (like a power director) the cartridges can be left out in the open air, rather than properly capped where they will be protected.

[Mal_Content]

Your instructions worked well. I greatly appreciate your advice. The color cartridge was stubborn, but after a 2nd water boarding and cleaning it started to see things my way. I only use manual power on and off so I shouldn't have to worry about that. I typically run a test page once a week to keep the print heads from drying out, but I let a little too much time pass since my last print job. Thanks again!