What to do with printer?

[Magus75]

Printer appeared to run out of black ink. Purchased a new 564XL cartridge but still no black print. As cartridge was a refurb, returned to Office Depot and traded for a brand new HP 564XL cartridge. Still no black print after installing.

At this point I'm ready to take a sledgehammer to the device as I've now spent $30 and still can't print.

Looked at perhaps selling cartridge that cannot be returned using eBay. Then considered another HP printer that also uses the 564 cartridges. 

Is there any hope for troubleshooting this printer? Special cleaning that can be done or whatever? I've tried running the "Clean printhead" cycle several times to no avail.

Thanks for any info... Rick 🙂

[Ratchet_31]

Hi Rick 

You can try this 

1. Load plain, white paper into the paper tray.
2. On the printer control panel, press the down arrow to select Settings, and then press OK.
3. Press the down arrow to select Tools, and then press OK.
4. Press the down arrow to select Clean Printhead, and then press OK.
   The printer cleans the printhead and then prints a test page.
5. Review the print quality on the test page.
6. Repeat the same steps for couple of times , if printer still doesnt print in black then the printhead is defective and need to be repalced . 

If this resolves the issue please click on the thumbsup . 

[Magus75]

For anyone that may discover this thread down the road, here's the outcome.

After several cleaning cycles and nothing, I decided to remove the print cartridges and try to clean that area where they connect. Still nothing. I made a trip to a store to purchase a screwdriver with tiny Torx bits. I think I needed to use a T4 and T8 sizes. I removed the screws on the top of the printer to expose the printhead area. Off to the right where the printhead and cartridges park when not in use, there was a thick gummy layer of ink residue. And when I removed the actual printhead, there was thick gummy residue on the bottom side of it.

I performed several cycles of soaking the printhead in a solution of half 91% alcohol and half water. After each soaking, I used an electric air blower used for cleaning computers. Eventually got the printhead pristine looking. 

But after re-assembling things, I began seeing an error with the assembly where you insert the ink cartridges. It would slam the assembly to the right really hard a couple of times, then issue an error. As that wasn't happening before, I can only assume I did something to introduce the issue.

New printer time I suppose.

Rick 🙂

[sabretooth04]

Verify you put the encoder strip back correctly inside the assembly.

[Magus75]

Not sure what is meant by the encoder strip.

The issue seems purely mechanical. What appears to be happening at this point is that there is a mechanism that seems to press up to the printhead when it is "parked". Presumably to cover and seal it when it isn't in use. That area was covered in goo. I'm guessing lots of excess ink that has partially dried. But this mechanism appears to be configured to move back and forth. Well, actually from front to back. And I hear a grinding sound that seems to indicate some gears aren't meshing.

No biggie. I'm done with it. I'll dispose of the printer and purchase a new one. Local computer store has a Kodak on sale for $29. I had a Lexmark once. Hated it. Replaced it with the HP we have now. Seemed to work for a while. I think it may be three years old. Time to try a Kodak. At this point I'm convinced printers are just consumable devices that last about three years.

Thanks... Rick 🙂

[Ratchet_31]

GOOD LUCK