HP B9180 Carriage Stall

[Alistair]

Is this the world's worst printer or what?

I have spent nearly 2 days on this and thought I would just see if anyone else on this forum has suffered from and resolved this problem before I put the whole thing in a dumpster and give up.

Printer is out of warranty and HP do not want to know.

The carriage is jamming in the LH side of its run. I have removed the LH side panel and can see where the head is getting stuck. The head is sitting too low relative to two little channels that two tabs on the side of the head carriage are supposed to slide into. Instead of the tab on the head sliding into the channel it is hitting the upper edge of it and stopping.

Anyone had any experience with similar problem?

[Alistair]

Well, after much poking around, I determined that the issue was that
the carriage was sitting too high and was out of alignment with the
channel that it's tabs needed to fit into. I found that there are a
couple of adjusting screws on the back of the printer under two small
rectangular covers. These come off easily and under them are two screws
that can be slackened to adjust the rear rail that determines the
height at which the carriage travels.

With nothing to lose I dropped the height of the carriage so that it's
tabs would slide into the requisite channels without interference and
all appears to be well. I have performed a head maintenance and color
calibration and printed a couple of test prints and all seems well so
far but of course it is early days as yet.

Please note that this printer was out of warranty and I was genuinely
prepared to trash it if it had not worked and gone back to my faithful
old Epsons. So this course of action should not be taken lightly as I
do not yet know if it is a lasting fix or whether there will be any
longer term downstream consequences of the adjustment. That is; if you
have this problem, undertake this adjustment at your own risk!!

[WilliamSC]

Well, after much poking around, I determined that the issue was that
the carriage was sitting too high and was out of alignment with the
channel that it's tabs needed to fit into. I found that there are a
couple of adjusting screws on the back of the printer under two small
rectangular covers. These come off easily and under them are two screws
that can be slackened to adjust the rear rail that determines the
height at which the carriage travels.

With nothing to lose I dropped the height of the carriage so that it's
tabs would slide into the requisite channels without interference and
all appears to be well. I have performed a head maintenance and color
calibration and printed a couple of test prints and all seems well so
far but of course it is early days as yet.

Please note that this printer was out of warranty and I was genuinely
prepared to trash it if it had not worked and gone back to my faithful
old Epsons. So this course of action should not be taken lightly as I
do not yet know if it is a lasting fix or whether there will be any
longer term downstream consequences of the adjustment. That is; if you
have this problem, undertake this adjustment at your own risk!!

I am on printer #4. The best advice I received, on the LL forum, was to purchase the extended warranty for $75.00 after buying the printer in the first place. When it works, the prints are stunning (c/b&w) on different papers. My personal favorite-Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta. IMHO - HP is not Epson and my next printer will be an Epson. The nearly 50+ hours dealing with problem after problem with HP is distracting to my business.