Hey all,
I've got an HP PageWide 577 that sat for quite some time, after starting it up I printed a test page that showed large amounts of missing sections. Ink cartridges are good (lots of life in them, HP-branded, not dried out).
In my attempts to get it printing nicely, I've ran (and re-ran) both the 1st and 2nd level printhead cleaning on the machine + a few tap tests from the engineering menu (taps 21 & 23). That didn't do much so I went a bit more manual- cleaning the printheads directly (carefully!). Reading online, lots of folks had success manually cleaning the printheads with distilled water and a small amount of windex on a paper towel- dabbing each head repeatedly. That had some success, the test print when from showing only some fade black to now print yellow, magenta and (more) black, with a hint of cyan.
I've done these above steps a few times now and have seemingly hit a wall in terms of print quality improvement. I have already cleaned the duplex waste ink bin.
Does anyone have any suggestions on some next steps to getting this working? I got this printer for free so I'm hoping to not really spend much on it, but am willing to disassemble it in an attempt to get it working. I've even thought of removing the actual printhead to try cleaning it more extensively, but that would be quite the undertaking! One post I came across suggested that air may be trapped in the print delivery system (printbar), which may be causing some print heads not the receive ink. Though I am unsure how to confirm this or purge the system of air if this is the case.
Attached is a photo of my current progress with getting it clean. Keep in mind, the original test sheet had no yellow, cyan or magenta at all so this is actually quite an improvement!
Image link as that didn't seem to post nicely:
I've got an HP PageWide 577 that sat for quite some time, after starting it up I printed a test page that showed large amounts of missing sections. Ink cartridges are good (lots of life in them, HP-branded, not dried out).
In my attempts to get it printing nicely, I've ran (and re-ran) both the 1st and 2nd level printhead cleaning on the machine + a few tap tests from the engineering menu (taps 21 & 23). That didn't do much so I went a bit more manual- cleaning the printheads directly (carefully!). Reading online, lots of folks had success manually cleaning the printheads with distilled water and a small amount of windex on a paper towel- dabbing each head repeatedly. That had some success, the test print when from showing only some fade black to now print yellow, magenta and (more) black, with a hint of cyan.
I've done these above steps a few times now and have seemingly hit a wall in terms of print quality improvement. I have already cleaned the duplex waste ink bin.
Does anyone have any suggestions on some next steps to getting this working? I got this printer for free so I'm hoping to not really spend much on it, but am willing to disassemble it in an attempt to get it working. I've even thought of removing the actual printhead to try cleaning it more extensively, but that would be quite the undertaking! One post I came across suggested that air may be trapped in the print delivery system (printbar), which may be causing some print heads not the receive ink. Though I am unsure how to confirm this or purge the system of air if this is the case.
Attached is a photo of my current progress with getting it clean. Keep in mind, the original test sheet had no yellow, cyan or magenta at all so this is actually quite an improvement!
Image link as that didn't seem to post nicely: