HP Smart Tank 5107

[henddyndydad]

Hello - I see mails regularly on here about Smart Tank 5100 series printers which won't centralise the carriage and give access to the ink heads when the access door is opened.  All the answers  - and some seem to come from people who work for HP - seem to revolve around the same thing - wait 15 seconds then open the door again - remove the power lead and wait 30 seconds or various other similar answers.  I suspect these answers never work i.e. they never - as if by magic centralise the carriage.  Incidentally the above 'may' apply to other similar printers but I only have experience of the 5107.  

[ferRX]

Hi @henddyndydad 

You may need to block the printer carriage when it moves to center after you power on printer.

Please follow steps from the next video to centralise carriage in your printer:

>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdGg4wI1lrc

• 

* Click YES   to say thank you, 

* Click Accepted as Solution when question is answered.

ferRX.

[henddyndydad]

Hi @ferRX – thanks for the reply – and the link, appreciate you’re input.  I’ve seen the video you refer to before, I’d only use it – and similar ones as a last resort.  As an engineer I’d suggest that physically forcing the moving print head to stop whilst the motor is powered up is not a good solution.  There should be a more elegant way of doing it.

A retired HP employee – Rainbow23 with over 15,000 postings referring to Smart Tank printers said on here:-

“The carriage only moves if the printer is in a printhead error state.  If the carriage does not move to the centre of the printer when you open the printhead access door, the printheads do not need to be replaced.  Replace print heads only when instructed to by error messages on the printer  software, control panel or HP Smart app”

I have two HP Smart Tank 5100 series printers and the ‘only’ time the print heads have moved to the centre when I opened the door was when I initially set up the printers which appears to back up what Rainbow23 said.  If the door was opened to top up the ink tanks why should the print heads centralise – that would just be unnecessary work for the printer to carry out.  However should the printer report an error relating to the print heads and for some reason not centralise the print heads when the door was opened then it may be necessary for some input on the part of the user to centralise the print heads.  I’d always use the following method, by entering these commands via the control panel:-

• With the printer turned on press and hold the POWER button.
• Press the cancel button (X) once.
• Press the colour copy button three times.
• Finally release the POWER button.
• Open the door and the print heads should move to the centre.

The above method works with both my Smart Tank 5100 series printers, the print heads remain centralised for five minutes after which they will be returned to the extreme left and be safely parked.  Try steering clear of solutions that involve physically forcing the print heads to move.  Certainly do ‘not’ try and force the print heads away from their normal parked position on the extreme left – there is a locking mechanism there which locks the assembly in place and forcing it to move will almost certainly damage the mechanics.

Sorry that took so long – good luck – I hope the above works for you – it does for me.

Oh and if five minutes is not adequate to work on the print heads, remove the power lead ‘after’ the print heads have centralised using the button sequence.

I welcome any comments....