DesignJet T520 Repair Grimsby
Had a call yesterday (Thursday) for a DesignJet T520 repair in Grimsby. The machine would not accept the black ink cartridge.
Not a bad run over to the east coast, apart from all the roadworks on the M62 around Leeds. Just a few delays with a travel time of just under 2 hours.
Back to the plotter. This is a common problem with this particular DesignJet platform, The DesignJet T120 and the DesignJet T520 will at some stage suffer from this ailment. (if not the black ink it will be one of the coloured ones).
The cause of it is still somewhat of a mystery and despite extensive investigation, personally, I have not, as yet, gotten to the bottom of it.
I suspect it has something to do with the either the output septum of the cartridge or the input pin on the printhead. Either way a bad seal is produced and the ink leaks from the connection. This in turn causes major problems.
The ink leakage drops into the chassis of the plotter. It also drops onto the housing of the service station, which causes a build up of “sticky ink”. This is turn can contaminate and damage the line sensor on the pen carriage, which causes media load problems.
The only real way to resolve this problem is to replace the printhead. This is user installable using the HP 711 replacement printhead kit.
However, before this is attempted the machine must be thoroughly cleaned of all contamination.
It’s a messy job and takes around 60 minutes to do correctly. This is exactly what I did with this machine.
I also tried stripping the printhead down and cleaning all the component parts , unfortunately this didn’t resolve the cartridge missing problem.
Customer has ordered a printhead kit now the machine is all cleaned and serviced ready to start printing again.
Please note, when I say this is common problem it only seems to occur on old printheads. This particular machine has been running smoothly since it was installed 3 and a half years ago. – Not bad for a consumable part.
