Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: Henrik Paul on December 21, 2006, 02:35:28 pm
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So, I'm a happy owner of a brand new HP B9180. I was merrily going my way on the path of installation, when all of a sudden, during the installation phase, the printer claims the magenta ink is depleted.
I am between the steps where I just inserted the print heads and was supposed to load the calibration sheets in the tray. But the "i" button is blinking and the display urges me to replace the magenta cartidge, as it is already empty.
Has anyone encountered this? Do I already have to buy a new cartidge, before printing even the first sheet?
Help?!
PS: I tried to take the cartidge out, shake it a bit and replace it, to no avail. I think i can feel some weight sloshing back and forth, though.
PPS: I took out both the yellow and magenta cartidges (they were paired, thought there was something wrong with them), gave them both a shake, replaced them, no help. Powered off, took the power cord out, in again, no help. Now, out of nowhere it has been doing a head maintenance for a few minutes, while making some hellish and, by normal senses, unhealthy sounds (clicks, whirrs and buzzes - a few *bloings* aswell). Just as an update...
PPPS: Hm. Now it's acting like nothing wrong happened, asking nicely for some paper to churn on, and I thought a few minutes ago that my 600 Euro investment had just chewed up its own internals. I think I'm going to have a long talk with it. Still scared witless.
Looked like a false alarm from a non-existing problem. Sorry, and let this be a notice for future owners.
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My 9180 showed three ink carts to be empty all at once, but all I did was take them out and shake and replace and they have been printing just fine for a couple of months now. It is a high-strung critter that will send out silly messages like this from time to time - best to test first before replacing.
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Yes, it seemed like some kind of a hitch. The unit works perfectly now, and I've already done several succesful testing prints.
The shaking didn't work for me the first time around, but it's good to know in the future, and hopefully a future owner is now informed of this kind of possibility.
Even if I got quite scared there for a moment, this printer seems like a great investment.
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Argh! now it's doing it again! First it complained about both magenta and yellow, but when I replaced both of them, it still goes on about magenta.
I wonder if I have to return this, at least for repairs. *sigh* No christmas printing for me, seems like it.
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In case someone is interested on the follow-ups, I contacted HP's live support and after a brief-ish Q&A, the supportperson thought the problem lies in the cartidge itself and recommending contacting my local support.
Having already sent a support request, I guess I'm forced to wait until wednesday at the very least (*sigh*) due to the christmas days.
The plot thickens
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I had the same issue but after a good shake and firmly re seating them all was well, I would give it another try
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Did you clean the copper contacts before insertion? On the 130 designjet. it requires a cotton swab and distilled water be used on contacts. I had the same issue until cleaning. Check instructions.
Bob
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Did you clean the copper contacts before insertion? On the 130 designjet. it requires a cotton swab and distilled water be used on contacts. I had the same issue until cleaning. Check instructions.
Bob
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I tried that, but to no avail. I could give it a go again, just to be sure. I might even try with some Eclipse, but I'm not really sure whether the materials withstand alcohol, or if I dissolve something by mistake...
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Follow-up
Today I got a reply from HP Finland to my support request (which is actually on the first working day after I sent the request, so it was quick). I was asked of the best-before date on the ink cassette and a postal address, so they could send me a new cartridge.
I'm quite pleased of this support I've experienced, although I'm puzzled a bit over the lack of phone support for the B9180. The only phone numbers I found mentioned a number for support on Photosmart printers, excepting a few, including the 9000 -series. Perhaps this printer truly is a marginal product on the Finnish market.
The mail also mentioned something about a week's expected delivery. Naturally, this is something that can't really be helped due to the many factors included in the shipping, but it's a sad fact that until I receive the new cartridge, I haven't had a chance to print in two weeks, after the first few sheets I had the chance to print before the "terminal malfunction". It could also be more, if the fault isn't in the cartridge at all.
Call me impatient and unfair, but I'd really like some bang for the 600 bucks (euros, actually) I paid for this printer, statistical anomaly or not.
Another thing that I previously hadn't mentoined was on the last print before the cartridge went kaput. The last inch it printed, the print had shifted about centimeter to one side. It's hard to explain, but perhaps the attached image shows what I mean (sorry for the noisy image). Maybe the paper shifted, but I hadn't touched it, so I wonder if this is a possible problem in the future too. It'd be unfortunate if an A3 print gets shifted in mid-print...
[attachment=1437:attachment]
Also, to my horror, in the same print, I noticed some pizzacutter marks. This seems to be a problem not uncommon to this printer. I really hope it's a one-off problem.
Unfortunately, I forgot to mention these things on the support request about the magenta cartridge. Well, I'll do another request if they repeat - once I get the new cartridge, that is.
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Hello Henrik -
Regarding pizzawheel marks, I don't own a B9180 (yet) but I found this tip from a dpreview.net forum, might help...
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On a tip from Vic Lopides (another Forumite), I used the B9180's front panel to perform a "Closed Loop Calibration" and the pizza wheel marks are gone.
Thought this deserved it's own thread since the tip was buried a few pages down in another.
Here's how . . . (Vic is talking to Shereen at HP Support)
Shereen: --Color calibrate the printer using closed loop calibration.
>>Load HP Advanced Glossy Photo Paper in the main tray
Shereen: Note:Only HP Advanced Glossy Photo Paper should be used for this process. If plain paper is detected by the printer, the calibration procedure will fail
Shereen: >>Press Menu on the printer control panel.
>>Select Calibrate Printer, and then press OK.
>>Select Closed Loop Calibration, and then press OK.
Vic Lopides: Done.
Thanks Vic! This worked for me.
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Cheers,
Joe
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original message at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=20443736 (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=20443736)
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-vesa-
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After a week's wait, I got my replacement Magenta cartridge. Still, after installing it according to instructions, the machine taunts me with its false accusations, "Magenta depleted". I'm mailing back the support.
*sigh* It's now been nearly over two weeks since I could print my four sheets of paper.
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And now my printer have developed a problem as well well. It will feed the paper but just spit it out witout printing anything, and just ask for more paper. This happens with paper from both the main tray and the manual feed. Anybody seen this before?
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As a possible conclusion (no more spamming, rejoice), I took the affair back to my support guy at HP Finland.
He first asked a thing that convinced me that the B9180 really is a marginal product (probably falling in a void between the 17"-and-up and consumer niches): He asked me to print a test sheet and then scan/photo it and email it back to him. He apparently didn't know (or his cheat-sheet didn't mention it) that the printer refuses to interact in any way if the printer is convinced that a cartridge is depleted.
Never mind that, though. Without hesitation, he promised to ship me a new B9180 (some removeable parts missing, so I would move them from the old to the new) and I ship the old one back. I reminded the guy also that the new unit needs to be calibrated, and I was also out of the glossy papers required for the calibration, so he added 50 sheets of paper and a new set of inks to the shipment.
Now, I want to say that this is the best customer service I have ever got. The weeks of waiting (a total of 2.5 weeks just waiting for the parts) is a drag, but that's hardly the support person's fault. The items are probably shipped from a central repository somewhere in Europe, so they are bound to take some time. So, I'm with mixed feelings. I'm happy that everything (probably) went alright, I got what I wanted without any hassle, but the waiting because of christmas, the new year and shipping, I've soon been a month without a printer.
Oh well. Over and out - hopefully permanently.
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I had an odd issue. After taking 3 or 4 really odd pot shots at fixing it HP is sending me a new one. I wonder if they'll send replacement ink. Cause it costs something like $80 to "prime" the system. Curious what the "some removable parts missing" means.
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Curious what the "some removable parts missing" means.
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The guy mentioned "ink, power cords, perhaps the paper tray, the front panel, etc". I just wonder what the front panel would be.
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Henrik
Your sad journey and others on this website have put me off buying this obviously great product with serious QA issues. I guess I'll have to wait for the Canon Pro 9500 and see if it's any better.
Ken
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The guy mentioned "ink, power cords, perhaps the paper tray, the front panel, etc". I just wonder what the front panel would be.
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My ink cartridges were down almost 30% after initial setup. If I get a printer without ink I'll have to buy a new set of ink cartridges just to do the setup. There is no way I'm eating that expense just to find out if the new one has a problem. I'd ebay the carcass first and get a 9500 or 3800.
(For the record I love the output of this printer and its ease of use. I'll be greatly upset if I have additional issues.)
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My ink cartridges were down almost 30% after initial setup. If I get a printer without ink I'll have to buy a new set of ink cartridges just to do the setup. There is no way I'm eating that expense just to find out if the new one has a problem. I'd ebay the carcass first and get a 9500 or 3800.
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Hence the request for a new set of inks, and the approval of them. Alas, I did check out the possibilities on Canon, but the Pro 9000 is ink, not pigment so that's a no-go and the 9500 isn't even out, yet alone reviewed, so I'm sticking to my B9180.
I still think the printer is great. Everything gets a Dead On Arrival occasionally. You can get only so much more reliable with QA without rocketing the price. If the replacement, however, is also a dud, then that's another situation.
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Henrik,
Be sure to let us know the state of your replacement!
Thanks!
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And now my printer have developed a problem as well well. It will feed the paper but just spit it out witout printing anything, and just ask for more paper. This happens with paper from both the main tray and the manual feed. Anybody seen this before?
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I have now been in contact with HP support, and they are going to send me a new printer.
Just like Henrik Paul this is probably one of the best customer services I have had, and I'm in Norway. So it really looks like HP stand by their product and is willing to fix any problems.
The problem with my printer seems to be that a sensor do not detect that paper is actually comming correctly into the printer.
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Saw this over at the online photographer from Mike Johnston
I hope it's not too crass to mention that all of these prints are examples of what the new HP B9180 can do. I'm finding it to be a balky, cantankerous beast with lots of bad habits—I'll update you chapter and verse in these pages soon—but the results are so stunning I'm already flat-out dreading the time when it will have to go back to HP.
That sounds about right.
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Got my new printer. Replacement ink and paper included. Had to use the old print heads.
This one has the same issue as the old one. I have an image sized to the sheet of paper it is going to print on. 8.5x11 in this case. The image has a fake white matte. When I print this borderless at 100% I get one or more odd black rectangles printed in the white "matte" area of the print.
This isn't a real interesting problem since I've only about 2 images done this way and it doesn't seem to happen on normal borderless images (those that the actual photo is edge to edge) or on images that are printed smaller than the given media size. (Which would be about 99% of what I print.)
Anywho. The new printer works fine except for this one odd issue.
I'm still shocked they sent me a new one. It had a "I don't know, try a new printer." feel to it. I doubt I'm even going to pursue this any further. I just want them to enter it as a defect and try to fix it if they ever see the issue.
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Hope the others who were going to get replacements remember to post their respective outcomes.
I'm very interested in this printer and have always had good experiences with HP support.
Thanks!
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Due to some requests, here's the epilogue of the thing:
I got my replacement yesterday by courier. The package was a normal retail package that apparently has been used many times - it was torn, battered and taped several times. Also the styrofoam end paddings were barely holding together. But inside was a full B9180 unit (the ton of tapes and all), along with a 'calibration pack' (approximately 10 sheets of HP Advanced Glossy) and a similar pack of inks that the retail box comes with. If this model normally ships with reduced capacity cartidges, these most probably are too (as Vivera cartridges are sold separately only, not in sets). The only thing I had to take from the old printer were the print heads. I wonder if I'm still going to receive a fresh set of inks sans magenta and a 50-box of Advanced Glossy (as initially promised), or is this what I got instead. Not that I'm complaining, but a non-reduced set of inks is always non-reduced set of inks and 50 sheets are 50 sheets.
Anyhow. The replacement seems to work well. No problems during installation. The matte black head was entirely clogged due to the inability of the previous unit to do a regular maintenance on the heads. After an automatic printhead service and the initial calibration of the new unit, the print quality was up to par. The service seemed to drain heavily on the matte black cartridge, as the old one is giving low level warnings. But, as said, I have a replacement handy, so everything's ok.
So, things seem eventually to work out. Not as fast as I would liked, but apparently as fast as HP possibly could've been given their current arrangements of central storages and such.
Edit: I today received another package by courier, containing 7 retail packaged ink cartridges and a pack of HP Advanced Glossy paper. Excellent.
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I got my replacement unit yesterday, but would have gotten it 1 1/5 week ago if I had not been out traveling.
The new unit seems to be working ok, but there is one issue I have to look into. I had time for only on print yesterday after setup, and it had a thin white stripe about 5 cm down from the top in a landscape print. It does not seem to be mechanical, as it it is not visible on the alignemnet prints from the printer. Strange. Will check it out if I have som time today or tomorrow.
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I had time for only on print yesterday after setup, and it had a thin white stripe about 5 cm down from the top in a landscape print. It does not seem to be mechanical, as it it is not visible on the alignemnet prints from the printer. Strange. Will check it out if I have som time today or tomorrow.
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I have now confirmed that this is not a hw issue, it's not somthing dragging over the image.
If I print the image in landscape orientation I get the stripe, if I rotate the image and prints in portrait orientation the image comes out perfect, no stripe. Must be something in the printer firmware or something, the driver and sw on my computer are still the same as I used on the other printer.
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I have now confirmed that this is not a hw issue, it's not somthing dragging over the image.
If I print the image in landscape orientation I get the stripe, if I rotate the image and prints in portrait orientation the image comes out perfect, no stripe. Must be something in the printer firmware or something, the driver and sw on my computer are still the same as I used on the other printer.
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Ronnynil -
Are you using the Photoshop plugin? This sounds like a known bug with the plugin, which doesn't show up if you use "Print with Preview" or another program (such as Qimage) to print.
Jack
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Ronnynil -
Are you using the Photoshop plugin? This sounds like a known bug with the plugin, which doesn't show up if you use "Print with Preview" or another program (such as Qimage) to print.
Jack
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Yes! I think you have solved the problem. I used the Photoshop plugin for the first time when i tested the new printer. Never used it before so that explains it. Used the time when i waited for the printer to set up papertypes etc. so I though I should start using the plugin as that is easier to use.
Thank you!
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I've had the same problem with the black rectangles appearing on landscape oriented pages where a smaller image was placed onto an 8x11' page. I had used the Photoshop HP plugin as well, and had selected that the printer to not do any scaling.
One print had 2 rectangles at the right edge, top and bottom. After moving the image up a bit, I only got a black rectangle at the bottom.If anyone wants to see how this looks, let me know and I'll attach or url a jpeg.
My workaround last night was just to crop the image and get rid of the faux matt area and click the Pshp printer setting to center the image on the page. This looks like a workaround, but I'd rather the HP people fixed the plug-in so none's needed.
I've had the printer about a month, and had brought a print with the rectangles to the HP booth at the recent MacWorld (though I'm using a PC, btw). At that point I'd only had the printer a few days, and I'd only had that problem once. However, the rep advised I should contact HP if the problem recurs.
I'm hoping others will let them know. Don't know if the HP people read this forum. But it does sound like something's off with the Photoshop plug-in. The reps at MacWorld really felt I should stick to their PShp plug-in to get the most consistent results of matching up what one sees on screen with the print.
My biggest concern was their lack of support for any papers other than theirs. I think this is not only unrealistic but shooting yourself in the foot when the Epson people seem to be bending over backwards to be compatible with other papers. Epson's dominated this market, so HP should be competing by being as compatible as well as giving us a better printer altogether without the grief of the Epson clogging printheads. However, I digress here.
Wondering Dark Penguin if you've had any recurrence of the black rectangles, or if you've cirumvented this problem in some other way?
Got my new printer. Replacement ink and paper included. Had to use the old print heads.
This one has the same issue as the old one. I have an image sized to the sheet of paper it is going to print on. 8.5x11 in this case. The image has a fake white matte. When I print this borderless at 100% I get one or more odd black rectangles printed in the white "matte" area of the print.
This isn't a real interesting problem since I've only about 2 images done this way and it doesn't seem to happen on normal borderless images (those that the actual photo is edge to edge) or on images that are printed smaller than the given media size. (Which would be about 99% of what I print.)
Anywho. The new printer works fine except for this one odd issue.
I'm still shocked they sent me a new one. It had a "I don't know, try a new printer." feel to it. I doubt I'm even going to pursue this any further. I just want them to enter it as a defect and try to fix it if they ever see the issue.
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I think i'm supposed to call their techs. I haven't yet. I really should now that someone else has seen this. I finally bought Qimage to print with but haven't printed one of the problem images yet. (Been in a massive image archive reorg. I'm not even sure I can find the problem images.)
This has been seen by me on 2 printers and yourself on another. Clearly they have an issue. If they would just run a print they would see it.
As to 3rd party paper have you seen these two sites?
http://www.shadowbrush.org/wiki/index.php?title=B9180Papers (http://www.shadowbrush.org/wiki/index.php?title=B9180Papers)
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hp9100Series/ (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hp9100Series/)
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Thanks for the urls--I have seen these. I'm going to have to try a bit more experimentation on the ICC profiles at the Yahoo groups site. Not sure now--I think it was the Ilford Smooth Pearl, I had much better results just using HP's settings for Advanced Satin-Matte or even Soft Gloss--but maybe I didn't follow the procedure correctly.
The two HP people I spoke with January at the MacWorld booth both relied completely on using the Adobe plug-in, and leaving the Pshp proofing setup to SRGB. They both warned of potential settings conflicts when one starts using the print preview and making settings changes from there.
BTW, one thing I won't use again is the Other Photo papers choice. That produced the worst results.
I'll be very interested to hear of any results you have with Qimage.
It's kind of a drag to have to resort to that though, as I think the burden should really be HP to make their Photoshop plug-in work flawlessly, AND acknowledge that people ARE going to use other high quality papers in addition to their own.
Greater compatibility, hardware and software reliability, not just competitive pricing, are what can make this printer finally a solid alternative to Epson's product line. I truly hope the HP folks realize this!
I think i'm supposed to call their techs. I haven't yet. I really should now that someone else has seen this. I finally bought Qimage to print with but haven't printed one of the problem images yet. (Been in a massive image archive reorg. I'm not even sure I can find the problem images.)
This has been seen by me on 2 printers and yourself on another. Clearly they have an issue. If they would just run a print they would see it.
As to 3rd party paper have you seen these two sites?
http://www.shadowbrush.org/wiki/index.php?title=B9180Papers (http://www.shadowbrush.org/wiki/index.php?title=B9180Papers)
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hp9100Series/ (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hp9100Series/)
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Oh, here's a nice one. The replacement B9180 I received some time ago... I haven't been able to print all that much because I was in Thailand and due to other matters also.
Anyhow. Today I thought it would be a good time to try the A3+ sized papers. As I fed the paper in, and tried to print, an error came up, saying that I should close the special media tray (which I was using). Okay. I cancelled the job and the paper was fed back to the front of the unit. Guess what I found lying on the paper. One pizza cutter. No, this is not a joke.
I'm putting HP back to the boycott-list and will seek for a refund for this unit.
Edit: The printer seems to work nevertheless, but i found stripes at the same direction as the printhead cartidge travels. *sigh* You would think you would get something worth your money with these 'pro' printers.
Edit2: Inspecting the print more closely, over the vertical lines, there's one smudge along the pizza cutters that shines when light is reflected from a certain angle. But the smudge is from the opposite side of where the pizza cutter fell off. A retry of the same print yielded in satisfactory results.