DesignJet Repairs In Scunthorpe
Nice start to the week, a trip to Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire, to look at a DesignJet Z5400 rejecting ink cartridges. However on arrival it seems the problem was a little more sinister.
In actual fact the the machine was flagging the cartridges as having an expiry date of 1970 - Totally strange.
Got to say, this one threw me for a while. Not a great deal on information on the HP website.
I suspected the problem was with the ISS (Ink Supply Station). This was removed and thoughly checked for any ink leakage or stuck bongos- everything appeard fine. Ran all the diagnostic tests - everything passed OK.
Experience is a wonderful thing, especially over 20 years in the Plotter Repair field.
Suspecting the problem was caused by the ISS, but not having a replacement with me, I decided to replaced a couple of sensors - corresponding to the two faulty Ink Cartridges.
Re-assembled the machine and reinserted all the inks - Still having problems with the two cartridges set to 1970. Repalced the cartridges with two new ones. The machine came back to life and has been running for the last few days.
I've since found information about this problem on the HP Forums. It seems to be a potential issue, one that I hope HP will look into. The forums reccomended the ISS shoukd be repalced as a full assembly. However, the repair I carried out appears to be working at a fraction of the cost.
