HP Sprocket Studio - Tiny Plastic Feed Roller Clips!!?

[rich1uk]

Dear HP,

I purchased my Sprocket Studio and three boxes of paper/cartridges (240 total photos) shortly before the Covid lockdown. The total price was around £250.

The photos are beautiful however I have only managed to print around 30 throughout the year, due to lockdown, before it has completely failed. The product is now out of warranty so HP cannot be contacted without paying for technical support…not great!

All of a sudden and for no apparent reason, the paper started to jam or miss feed as it was printing. Every print now fails with a red flashing LED light. Fearing it may have been a faulty cartridge, I tried three replacement ones but each time the printer damaged and creased the film, ruining each cartridge. The cartridges were also very difficult to remove.

The VCVRA-1802 version I purchased was at the end of 2019. It appears to have a serious design flaw. I noticed that one of the main feed rollers inside the unit is sitting at an angle. This is mentioned on various other threads on the HP forums for this product with other customers having difficulty printing and finding their cartridges damaged or impossible to eject. On closer inspection the fault is caused by a tiny plastic clip which is suppose to hold each end of the roller under tension broken on one side.  It is clear that this plastic clip, attached with just 1mm square of plastic, is nowhere near strong enough to hold the feed roller in place. It should be made of metal. This causes a misalignment of the roller, which then leads to printing failure, damage to cartridge film and stuck cartridges.

I guess I was lucky to print 30 photos from the machine before it failed as some people on the HP forums do not seem as lucky, with some machines appearing to have the fault straight out of the box.

The funny thing is, I know printers like these are designed for convenience rather than the cheapest cost per print but with the 30 photos printed for a total cost of £250, each photo has cost me around £8. Wow…HP have definitely stuffed me on this one!

I’m guessing from the number of people who appear to be struggling with this issue on the HP forums, They may have fixed this flaw on more recent versions of this printer (I hope!). Can you advise what I can do to fix it? Do you have more robust roller clips/components available which I can fit myself? It is without a doubt a significant design/manufacturing fault on an otherwise great product.

Just to confirm, the printer I purchased was brand new, three sets of genuine HP paper/cartridges. It has never moved since I set it up on my shelf and has only printed about 30 photos before the plastic roller clip failed deep inside the unit.

Thank you.

Rich

[rich1uk]

[Kumar0307]

@rich1uk

Dear Customer,

Please note that Sprocket printers are now supported by a strategic partner. For more information on Sprocket printers, Kindly visit https://sprocketprinters.com/pages/support

You can also email hpsprocket@caglobal.com  for Sprocket support or visit https://sprocketprinters.com/pages/contact-us

Thank you for choosing HP

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