black ink smears with hp photosmart 7550

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Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

Black ink smears all over the place. I have run the calibration, and
the clean cartridge without success. I haver changed all 3
cartridges, black ink still smears badly. The printer is not used a
lot; used every few days for 2-3 pages a day, is about 2 years old.

Anyone has any advice?

 

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Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

"jane@mylinuxisp.com" <jane@mylinuxisp-dot-com.no-spam.invalid> wrote in
message news:ma-dnZhEI5QHUpfeRVn_vQ@giganews.com...
> Black ink smears all over the place. I have run the calibration, and
> the clean cartridge without success. I haver changed all 3
> cartridges, black ink still smears badly. The printer is not used a
> lot; used every few days for 2-3 pages a day, is about 2 years old.

Check the little tray that is used to hold waste ink produced during head
cleaning cycles. It might be full - mine only took three years. Be VERY
careful moving the printer as it might drip ink if the tray is overflowing.
Put down some plastic sheeting and newspaper on top (not just newspaper as
the ink goes right through it too easily). These trays aren't always "user
servicable items" so you might find it hard to get instrictions on how to
get at it to see if it's full. The tray sometimes contains gears and a foam
pad - take care not to damage these while scooping out and solid/jelly like
ink residue.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

"jane@mylinuxisp.com" <jane@mylinuxisp-dot-com.no-spam.invalid> wrote in
message news:ma-dnZhEI5QHUpfeRVn_vQ@giganews.com...
> Black ink smears all over the place. I have run the calibration, and
> the clean cartridge without success. I have changed all 3
> cartridges, black ink still smears badly. The printer is not used a
> lot; used every few days for 2-3 pages a day, is about 2 years old.

Does the streaking look like that shown at
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/fastFaqDocument?lc=en&cc=us&product=56983&dlc=en&docname=c00219817
? If so you may have fibers stuck to the carriage. You could try cleaning
this as shown at:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&docname=bpa00489#N100F0
This is for a different printer but the idea is the same. At this point I
would skip the part about running the cleaning cycles and such and move
directly to the cotton swabs on the carriage. On this printer the carriage
does not move to the center as shown for the DeskJet 600 in this page, but you
can remove all three cartridges and then clean the underside of the carriage.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, not speaking for my employer HP