HP Designjet T610 won't recognize toner. Unable to update firmware. Now it won't start properly at all.

Joined
Feb 23, 2022
Messages
2
Hey, this post is kind of my last resort.

A few months ago we (architectural students) got an old broken large format printer (DesignJet T610) for free. Otherwise we would't be able to afford a device like that, even though it's crucial for our work.
We wanted to challenge ourself in fixing it on our own. Again becauce of costs. The generous previous owner said to us, that only the carriage belt needs a replacement, that's just too much hustle for him. That's lot like changing a printhead. So we did that, with help of very comprehensive youtube tutorials. Successful it seems, because the print heads moved normally when the device was started.

But then the black toner PK Toner was no longer recognized. The strange thing is, when booted the first time after the repair, everthing seemed fine. We were even able to send a printjob that started to process without any errors occurring.
Then it stopped and it said we need to reload the PK Toner, because it's empty.

Alright, we thought thats reasonable, because we got a fake old toner with the printer that seemed to be empty for real.
Ordered a new original HP one and put it in optimistically.
The printer won't recongnize it. It says it's empty, which it is obviously not true, because it came fresh out of the box. The error now occurs right after booting the device. All the other toners are recognized.

I cleaned the contacts with alcohol and tried different toners.

Obviously first I thought thats because of our amateur repair job that we botched. But i don't understand how that should be possible, because in order to replace the belt you don't touch anything related to the toners. Where could we look at to troubleshoot any hardware problem?

I read somewhere that it could be a problem with the firmware of the printer, because it sat for so long.
I was unable to update it. The printer was not recognized by my windows 10 computer any longer, with the error clogging up the signal to the computer (at least thats my theory). Workaround? If there would just be a way to brute force the software. Even to ignore the toner error. Then we would just print without that faulty one.

Frustrated after the long repair job it now sat for another while.
Now when started, it just says that the printer needs to be restarted. Otherwise contact HP support. Yeah right. Try that.
I know, with all the fixing that's just not surprising. I would be bothered to take the thing apart again, maybe set the belt to a fresh start if we could sense any hope from you guys.
I know it seems like a lot and it's probably a hopeless case.
But it just seems like a shame if we just would throw that thing away, without trying out every last possibility

This is my last resort. Any tips, even just for one of the problems would be much appreciated.

If anyone from HP is reading this, please keep in mind that we are all possible future customers of a lucrative product of yours. The customer experience was not what we would wish for with a high end product like this designjet t610, even if we cancel out the bad situation we started out at.

Sry for any mistakes in my writing. English is not my first language.
 
Joined
Jul 5, 2023
Messages
2
I really hoped to see a reply to this. Best of luck with the printer, I've just bought one and haven't used it yet, waiting on the ink.
 
Joined
Feb 23, 2022
Messages
2
I really hoped to see a reply to this. Best of luck with the printer, I've just bought one and haven't used it yet, waiting on the ink.
Hey francis, sorry the problem was the one above. We discarded the plotter.

Software was the problem. We didn't have any hardware laying around to set up a windows 2000 server to service the firmware and to get the drivers to work. (we had no plan to invest in new hardware) A virtual machine didn't work because I think our USB ports/drivers were also too futuristic for this thing. I can imagine there is a work around for this, but at this point we spent too much time and we simply gave up. (we saved it from the dump, so there was only the time investment)

If you have obsolete hardware laying around try to set up that server with the age specific OS and drivers. I think USB also could be an issue as discribed above.

Other than that I learned a lot and can help you with anything you need, so maybe this endeavor was not completely for nothing.

Edit:
I also wanted to add, that even if you get that windows 2000 server to work I really would doubt that any communication with an up to date OS from 2023 would work without any problems. I'm no pro at all with that stuff, but it seems like just another complicated step in the system and thats never good for performance.

If you are successful i would be happy to hear from you
 
Last edited:

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top