PrinterHelp

Hewlett-Packard bubblejet print error indication

December 22, 2007 – 6:41 pm
I use a little Hewlett-Packard bubble-jet printer at work (don't remember the number and now it's the Xmas hols...) It sometimes plays up with the green and orange lights flashing alternately and the print halts. When re-started it ejects the paper and then the same happens again. Tried changing the black & colour ink tank/heads but this didn't consistently cure the problem. Leaving it off for a while sometimes helped. I suspect that this behaviour means it detects some component as over-heating or jamming.

Posted in Bubblejet | 4 Comments »

Inkjet “efficiency”

August 19, 2007 – 6:10 pm
The “efficiency” of an inkjet printer is the proportion of ink that gets onto the paper. This depends on the detail design of the printer. Printers with separate ink tanks are known to use much more ink than those which have combined ink/print head cartridges, as in the former the head has to last much longer and requires more cleaning to remove stray dust and air bubbles which might get into the system when the ink tanks are taken out. Separate tank designs have efficiencies around 50-60%, while combined cartridge designs have efficiencies up to around 95%. So which is cheaper to run? There is no clear winner, as the higher cost of integral head/ink tank units balances out the greater efficiency, and the varying costs of manufacturer\'s recommended papers is a further factor..

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Edible Printing

August 19, 2007 – 6:08 pm
Yes, you can print on edible paper using edible colour inks in an inkjet printer, and then stick the paper on your cakes and such. You can't re-use the printer for ordinary printing, as you mustn't mix the edible and non-edible inks, for obvious reasons. The edible ink is a third-party ink. I've encountered a few of these jobs which came in for head blockage problems (no surprise there then).

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Ink absorber full/waste ink tank full

August 19, 2007 – 6:06 pm
This message comes up in two steps with Canon bubblejet printers. First there is a warning, then the printer refuses to work at all. What has happened is that the software has determined that sufficient head cleaning/purging has taken place to fill the waste ink absorber with waste ink. [It also means that you have spent rather a lot of money on ink, and that you may have used the printer more than was altogether prudent for a home/small office machine.] This problem can not be solved by the user. You must take or send it to a service centre, where a technician will remove the old ink absorber, clean up any internal ink mess (a job seemingly made much more difficult and messy if the customer has been using cheap non-original inks) and enter a reset code to clear the "ink absorber full" condition. [With some printers, no internal cleaning at all was ...

Posted in Bubblejet | 44 Comments »

Print Quality

August 19, 2007 – 6:02 pm
Print quality: There is more to getting good quality prints than putting some ink cartridges in the printer and grabbing a handful of paper. This is particularly important when printing photos. Manufacturers recommend that you use their original ink, that you use their brand of paper, or other recommended paper, and that you use the correct paper settings in the printer driver. Now what does the last item mean? (Find Paper Settings for your printer) If you explore the settings in your printer driver (Start/Printers and faxes/right click on the relevant icon, find Properties). Somewhere in here under preferences, page Setup or suchlike you should find the paper settings, typically with a drop-down list of “Plain paper” followed by a lot of other varieties from the manufacturer's recommended paper list. If you don't, or can't, select the paper you are actually using, the print profile applied to the paper will be wrong and the results ...

Posted in Bubblejet, Printers | No Comments »

How can I save money on bubble-jet printing?

August 19, 2007 – 5:56 pm
Unfortunately, the first answer that comes to most user's minds is "buy some cheap third-party inks". I'd like to explain why this is not such a good idea. While bubble-jets are 1) remarkably cheap, and 2) as good at printing photos as any other kind of printer at any price, they are really best suited for low volume home/home office/ small office printing. All too often, the cheap third-party (i.e. not the manufacturer's own ink) cartridges cause head blockage and other problems. If you are running a small business, this is the last thing you want. Time is money, and if you or your staff are struggling with a blocked print head it's costing your business money. £25 for a dinky cartridge for a mobile printer may seem a rip-off - until a printer in one of your vans fails and is out of action for the day, and then the printer head ...

Posted in Bubblejet | 1 Comment »

I swapped the printer but the replacement doesn’t work either

August 19, 2007 – 5:50 pm
Various reasons for this, most of which you can work out yourself. (i.e. the printers aren't the problem). Hovever for the most interesting one we have to thank a most irate customer. He swapped a USB-connected printer for another one just back from repair and was most annoyed when it didn't work. I had to explain to him that while you can do a straight swap with some makes of printer, with Canon printers you can't, as they all have unique USB identities. So you have to install the swap-out replacement as another printer, and when you take off the swap-out and re-fit the repaired printer, you have to set the printer you just connected to be the active printer.

Posted in Printers | 2 Comments »

Do I need a printer driver?

August 19, 2007 – 5:46 pm
The short answer is "yes" (For the non-expert, a driver is a piece of software that connects together your computer's programs and your printer.) Bubblejet printers are particularly fussy, as they won't work at all without a driver, and they won't work properly (or at all) without the driver for the exact printer model. Printers with parallel ports may work using a driver for a slightly different model in the manufacturer's range – but you may get strange looking print. USB printers should not be expected to work at all unless the correct driver is installed. They are also known to refuse to work if the logic board is set for the wrong “region” - this requires a different region's driver! Drivers can in general be downloaded from the download section of the manufacturer's website – easy if you have broadband, a problem if you don't! Make sure you get the right one ...

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Head Cleaning

August 19, 2007 – 5:41 pm
Head cleaning is performed automatically by a bubble jet printer (and it consumes significant amounts of ink.) It can also be triggered manually from the printer driver software and utilities (typically). If that doesn't work, you can try removing the print head and standing the nozzles in a puddle of solvent such as isopropyl alcohol or glass-cleaner or foaming cleanser. (or other alcohol-based cleaner). Please note that, if you use the manufacturer's own inks and print from the printer several times a month, you should, hopefully, rarely have to initiate the printer's self-clean, and should not have to resort to solvent cleaning of the heads at all. Most of the Canon bubblejet printers has two levels of head cleaning available in the printer management software - normal and deep. If you see a problem, try the normal cleaning, and if that doesn't do much, try the deep clean. If that doesn't make ...

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How does the ink level gauge work?

August 19, 2007 – 5:38 pm
Many printers will indicate the ink level remaining in the ink tanks, usually in the form of a readout on the screen of the associated computer. It will be a surprise to many users to be told that the printer doesn't measure the ink level. The readout is the result of some clever software making an estimate of how much ink is remaining based on the amount of printing and purging done. And this guesstimate can get confused and be totally wrong. (If you still think a £70 printer contains six electronic liquid level gauges, ask your auto dealer what the fuel gauge for your car costs to replace.) So how does it work (and how can it go wrong)? The software works with a sequence of events as follows: (with free ink sensor) Printer detects the insertion of an ink tank containing free liquid ink - software assumes it is 100% full. Ink is used for ...

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