HP Smart Tank 6001 - Total 29 pages Printed Over 1 Year - Now Shows Dual Printhead Errors

[anne1649]

Purchased a Smart Tank 6001 for my elderly parents so they could scan bills and print photos. After 16 months with a grand total of 12 scans printed & 17 photos printed the machine indicates dual printhead failure. Firmware is updated to latest HP offers and machine has been both hard & soft reset.  The printer also only responds to on machine button sequences about half the time and occasionally will flash either one or both of the copier type buttons. Printhead cartridges have been removed and replaced multiple times. Please advise as this is extremely discouraging after spending $400.00 to see such a catastrophic failure a few months past the very brief warranty period and very light use.

[BeemerBiker]

What you describe will happen on any inkjet printer that is rarely used: the ink dries out.

General advice on printhead cleaning is here.
This link shows cleaning the 8600 printhead and removal is shown here.

This is another type of printhead cleaning, different from the above.

Cleaning and removing ink is shown below by our "Scullery" team.

An HP original video on how to clean the printheads by our experts. Yes, this can get messy, but it works. If your ink levels are good but you are printing blank pages then this is likely the solution.

Official HP advice on cleaning.

Some printers have a printhead cleaning procedure.

To clean the printhead on an HP printer, access the printer settings through the HP Smart app, navigate to "Print Quality Tools," and select "Clean Printhead"; this will initiate a cleaning cycle where the printer will automatically run a cleaning process to clear any clogs in the printhead

Inkjet and printhead cleaning kits are available

[anne1649]

Thank you for reply but the last printing job was 6 days ago of a FB photo sent to them and 1 bill scan/print and both came out fine. My mother ran the print shop at RISD so she treats equipment responsibly. Not a good sign when the UK seems to have the best stores of in-stock replacement printheads though. I just want to make sure that it isn't a machine IC/sensor defect becoming more unstable before investing in new printheads to replace almost new print heads. Thanks again for professional reply.   

[anne1649]

It's obvious from the lack of US printhead stock that this item has a build quality issue systemically. It cycles between 3 different stages of the powering up process before always resolving to the dual printhead error status. This is an extremely poor showing by HP and the warranty borders on a threshold limiting scheme.

what incentive is there to purchase printheads when it is obviously an upstream sensor/ic/logic problem?

At a cost of $400.00 the 29 pages come out to almost $14.00 per page. 

[anne1649]

Instead of removing the mains cord I unplugged it and shorted the hot to neutral plug blades for 10 minutes. Curiously it came out of printhead error alert mode, it still doesn't print anything but thinks it is operating normally shoveling blank pages out for both c & bw from usb/scan sources. There is definitely a defect. I may try to glitch dump  any usual suspect ICs as this thing is obviously just a piece of cheap poorly executed rubbish . 

[anne1649]

My o-scopes, analyzers and various meters all the way down to pico all have Hewlett Packard labels....the HP on printers seemingly stands for "Hot Poo". Wonder if there is a pseudo-random countdown code pill in them to force migration toward the bloodsucking subscription model?

[BeemerBiker]

Blank pages are typically a symptom of a printhead that is blocked.   I have an HP cm1415 that is 15 years old and over 15,000 impressions.  It takes any type of cheap toner.  Occasionally I have to toss one of the cheap toners as it leaks ink powder and the color printouts do not look good.  Unfortunately, even with genuine HP toners, it does not do photo quality images.   Inkjets are needed for photo quality.   I have a canon ink jet and it requires canon cartridges and there is a puddle of ink slowly building up at idle position of the printhead.  I have been dabbing it up periodically with a tissue but eventually there is going to be a real problem.