Update on HP B9180 printer

[butterfly]

Hi everyone,

I've had this printer for about 8 months now. Recently it has started leaving a single white line down every print, of every size, 1cm from the trailing edge. It looks as though it just has not laid down any ink. Before and after the line is perfect. I have cleaned heads and followed all the other routines.

I contacted HP who suggested I download the latest firmware. I did this, and no way could I get it to flash the printer. It installed on the Mac, but then did not update the firmware. No activity on the printer at all. I did this 3 times and then gave up.

The problem still persists. I am now faced with having to print every pic at 83% to leave a large margin round each sheet of A3+.

I am pretty dismayed at this.

Does anyone else have this problem?

The amount of time it takes to do all these 'calibration' routines and starting up, plus the noise it makes is plain ridiculous.

I am close to dumping it and looking for an alternative.

Any comments or thoughts appreciated.

Steve

[JonathanPerkins]

Steve,

If the printer is only 8 months old you should get HP to replace it. I bought my first one about 18 months old now, and its been replaced by HP 3 times since then. HP were good at replacing them during the first year, and I have subsequently purchased the extra 2 years of warranty, although haven't needed to use it yet.

You'll get a refurbished printer and you simply stick your old one in the box and call the courier to collect. You need to move the heads and ink cartridges across, but certainly last year HP were including a complementary full set of inks with the refurbs.

I haven't tried to do the firmware update yet, as mines working at the moment and so if its not broke...

Other than the reliability its been a good printer, although it would be nice to be able to go larger than 13".

Jonathan

[Ted Harris]

Steve,

First, listen to Jonathan, your machine is still under warranty. Depending on where you purchased the machine, your dealer may be very helpful with the replacement. Jim at Midwet routinely assists customers with warranty issues.

Second, you might want to join the Yahoo users group for the B9180, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hp9100Series/

Finally, if you need any additional help feel free to send me an email and I will see if I can help in any way.

[PViapiano]

Typical experience with HP equipment among friends and acquaintances of mine...computers, printers, scanners, you name it...

[Brian Ellis]

There was a thread in the Yahoo digital black and white printing group (www.digitalblackandwhite:theprint.com) not too long ago that involved a problem like this with some model HP printer, not sure it was your model but you might try searching for that thread. Unfortunately I don't remember what the solution was, if any. The main things I remember from the thread were all the complaints about HP's tech non-support.

[geek4eye]

I assume the original author found a solution, but didn't post it; or maybe gave up (I hope not!). The solution is quite simple once you see it, so I thought I'd write it up for all to find.

I have a B9180 and had a similar problem - a very narrow l white stripe running lengthwise for the entire print. I drove myself nuts with all the upgrades and firmware and paper path things I could think of until I looked at the print really close and realized that the missing ink wasn't scraped away or forgotten, rather the whole image was shifted by the width of the stripe.

What I found (eventually) was a single SPEC OF DUST on the clear plastic reticule or timing strip that runs across the inside of the printer. The reticule is printed with very fine vertical lines that the printer uses for timing to see where the next spit of ink should go. With the dust spec in exactly the right (wrong!) spot, the printer was faked out into thinking it hadn't gotten to the next place to spit yet, so it didn't put any ink down and continued the image later, thus leaving a white stripe of no ink.

Be VERY careful about cleaning the reticule strip - they are very delicate, and if you rub off any of the tiny fine lines on it, then the printer will be unable to figure out reliably where to print - you'll have to replace the strip, which may be an issue depending on whether you can find someone to stock it. I took a quick peek at partsurfer.hp.com and found a part number; HP calls it an "Encoder strip", but they don't sell it from there. A quick web search yielded prices in the $160 -175 USD range. So be very gentle...