Printer Dead

I used my printer yesterday. When I switched it on today at the socket and then pressed the power button no lights came on, it was absolutely dead. I tried a different socket, no joy. Tried changing the plug fuse, no joy. Any ideas please?

 

Not sure what you expect any one to tell you. You told us absolutely nothing about this printer, how it connects to your computer or anything about your computer.

Check your printer's owner's manual. Maybe the printer has an internal fuse. Otherwise, there is no way to tell from here if the printer's power supply is bad, or if the printer itself failed.

 

It's an XP235 printer and it connects to the computer via WiFi. My computer runs on Windows 10, 64bit. I think the printer does have an internal fuse but having looked at a couple of you tube videos, I don't think I'd be able to repair it myself.

 

Sadly, your owner's manual doesn't offer much hope. All it says is to make sure the power cord is firmly connected. If that does not help, try a different wall outlet.

The only other suggestion is to unplug the printer from the wall, wait about 30 seconds, then plug it back in again to reset the printer. That said, you said you tried a different socket and replaced the cord fuse, so that would have reset it.

Unfortunately, it is rarely ever cost effective to have these printers repaired. If you have a multimeter, you could make sure you have power out of the power supply, but even then, finding a replacement supply may not be easy.

I think it time to ask Santa for a new printer.

 

Ok, thanks for your advice. It is much appreciated. Could you recommend any particular printer? I just need a basic printer, scanner, photocopier.

 

You will just have to google reviews in your price range. If a member of a warehouse club (Sam's, Costo, etc) they often have some good deals. I will say, I've been a long time HP user. My current HP Photosmart 7525 inkjet is 10 years old and still chugging along. But lately, I've been hearing some good things about Brother.

 

Ok, I'll bear all that in mind. Thank you very much.

 

I got one of these Ecotanks ET-2850 for my work last year and I'll have to say, I have been very happy with it. Not one problem which is phenomenal in the printer world. It's connected to wifi and multiple people/pc's use it daily.
The ink is super inexpensive and very easy to refill. I never thought I'd say this about a printer but it's a delight to setup and use.

 

I was wondering about those tank type printing devices. My concern is I probably print, maybe, 10 small (1 - 2 pages) documents per month - often going a couple weeks without the need to print anything. I say "the need" - I have got into the habit of printing something - anything - even a test page once a week just to keep "the juices flowing". But frankly that is wasting ink too - plus I sometimes forget.

Typical inkjet ink has a shelf-life - even new ink still sealed in its packaging. This is why cartridge packaging is dated and why we should not stock up on cartridges when tempted by discounted sale prices.

This is particularly a problem once the sealed packaging has been opened and the ink (or cartridge opening) is potentially exposed to air. The ink will thicken and eventually start to dry out. If lucky, only the cartridge is affected. If unlucky, or too much time has elapsed, the ink in the printer's printheads can dry and clog the printhead too - not good, or cheap to fix.

@xrobwx71 - I am assuming, since this is a work printer, you print significantly more than 10 small documents per month so drying out is not a problem. But I fear it would be for me and many home users who only occasionally print anything.

There are tutorials, like Mastering Your EcoTank: How to Flush Ink Out of EcoTank Printer. But even as a tech, this seems like a big, potentially very messy, pain in the a$$ hassle. I note step 9 in that procedure where he says, if problems persist, to "contact your printer manufacturer". I suspect that will probably be pointless since I bet flushing your print heads with some sort of "cleaning solution" or even distilled water will likely void any warranty.

I have now read several articles on tank type printers and most suggest to help prevent the printheads and nozzles from drying out, it is necessary to manually power off the printer when not in use to ensure the printheads are moved into position over the designated parking zone - a protective area designed to prevent the ink from drying.

This required manual user intervention puzzles me. I don't understand why these printers would not automatically go to sleep and auto-park their heads after the print jobs have completed.

@ZACCCC1 - Make sure you understand your printing needs before selecting your next printer. If you rarely need to print in color, you might consider a laser as laser toner does not have these drying/clogging ink issues. There are color lasers but they can be pricy and frankly, the budget models from even the most reliable makers probably should be avoided. But then I give the same advice for budget inkjets. Better to "invest" in something that is not-so budget minded - at least in my experience.

LOL By the way - this drying out issue is one reason I get my kids and grandkids "Print at Home" gift cards from Amazon and other on-line retailers. The other reason is if they don't like the gift they buy for themselves, that's on them.

 

Thank you for that.

 

Thanks Digerati for your advice. So many factors to take into account!

 

@Digerati It varies. We only use it for color printing which we do very little of. I'd say on average, we print about 20 pages per month but not every month. Some months it sits doing nothing. I would agree it sees more use than a regular homeowner.
90% of our printing is black (invoices/reports) performed on the mighty HP M401DN's laserjets, 3 of them still going after 11 years. I did replace the fuser on one of them a few months ago.

 

@erobwx71 - I just scanned through the owner's guide of your printer and cannot find anything about ink or printheads or pads drying out due to sitting idle for long periods. When yours sat for months, any issues with dried ink?

 

Not at all. We've had it for well over a year.
The refilling process is so easy. I've only gone through 1 bottle of Black and still on the same bottles of color when we bought it.

 

Interesting. Maybe they (the industry) finally figured it out. I am assuming premature drying out was not intentional to force users to buy their expensive replacement cartridges. Perhaps inexpensive 3rd party cartridges had a hand in turning them around. IDK

In any case, now if the industry would only use that technology for standard ink cartridges.

Speaking of "standard" cartridges, I sure wish the big players in the industry (HP, Epson, Brother, Canon, etc.) would get together and come up with an industry "standard" for cartridge sizes and configurations, as well as exactly what cyan, yellow, and magenta are. But that's dreaming.

@ZACCCC1 - sorry. We seem to have hijacked your thread. We now return to our regular scheduled programming.

 

At my former job we used some Ecotanks and other inket printers. All of them do poorly if not printed on almost daily... My home printer is a toner printer. Only black and white, but can go months without printing.

They make their money on the inks, I really wish they would standardize! We had a great 60" printer, did outstanding prints, the company no longer makes ink, but you have to have a card on the tank that says it is that companies ink, or it will not print. Crazy!

I have not heard of the turning the printer off on the capping station, it should do that at rest. But is seems the design is to have you keep on buying more ink!

 

How long ago are you talking for those EcoTanks? I would think [hope!] the newest generations are better. That said, without further information, hard to say if the poor printing was due to the failure to print daily, or something else. Typically even one small print job that uses all the cartridges (like a test page) just once a week is enough to keep them running optimally.

Plus, I suspect much depends on the quality of the printing device to start with. Some "entry-level" budget models are very cheap in every definition of the word.

Sadly, the marketing weenies at these companies are pretty good at marketing junk. I mean realistically, should users expect crystal clear, precise colors and years of service from a $40 printer? Fred is right, they make their money in replacement inks to go with these [nearly disposable] printing devices.

A toner printer suggest laser and yeah, that does not dry out. The toner is already a dry powder. It actually suffers more from high humidity environments.

That sounds more like a "plotter" and yes, they use different technologies than typical inkjets. Some still use inkjet inks, but instead of spraying pixel dots through a jet, they have very fine tip pens that draw extremely precise lines.

Fortunately, that is no longer legal. HP and the others got sued multiple times over those tactics, and lost in US and EU courts and probably elsewhere too. They can still program the printers to yell at users for using non-genuine inks and toners, but they must allow the print process to continue.

I do understand and sympathize (somewhat) with HP, Epson and the others. Ink is actually some pretty high-tech stuff. And HP, Epson, Brother and the others make their inks using specific and patented formulas with very tight controls for consistency. This is to ensure precise color matching and pixel dot size, batch after batch after batch. It is also to ensure the inks do not damage the printheads.

I know that many users have had no problems using 3rd party ink, but I also know that many users (including me) have seen printing problems go away after replacing 3rd party cartridges with genuine ones.

The problem with 3rd party ink is a total lack of consistency.

The 3rd party makers have to reverse engineer and make their own formulas (without violating any patents). That is an expensive process, especially considering how many different printer makers and printers (and all-in-ones) there are out there. So all the different 3rd party ink makers have their own formulas. This means if you buy your ink from Office Depot this time, Sam's next, BestBuy after that, you likely will be using different formulas each time. And who knows how their suppliers maintain consistency of those formulas batch after batch?

I bought my HP 7525 over 10 years ago from Sam's and bought some Sam's 3rd party ink for it. It worked great for about a year then the printouts started looking lousy with streaks, off colors, and other issues. Cleaning and aligning the heads didn't help. I switched out the ink to genuine HP and all my problems went away. Yes, genuine ink is more expensive, but having to throw out the cheaper 3rd party ink cartridges that were nearly full was no bargain either.

I note HP regularly has decent sales on their ink if you sign up and buy directly from them. And unlike Amazon, HP ships for free even if you buy only one cartridge at a time. I suspect the other printer makers have similar ink buying deals. HOWEVER - you really have to be careful with buying directly from HP and read the fine print or you could end subscribing to their automatic ink subscription plan where they send you new ink every month, whether you need it or not.

Lately, I have been buying my ink from LD Products. For the most part, I have been very satisfied. I have, however, had a few cartridges that failed to print, and one that leaked. But a quick report to LD Products resulted in a replacement cartridge being sent by express mail. Hard to argue with that.

But remember, while it may be unlikely 3rd party inks and toner will permanently damage the printer, it is still possible. And because HP and the others have no control over the production of 3rd party inks, damage caused by the use of 3rd party inks is NOT covered by warranties. For this reason, I typically recommend using genuine inks during the warranty period.

 

I am not sure what gen the eco tanks were. And I forget theiy had been converted to dye sub printers, so was very likely the ink, not the printer.

“
That sounds more like a "plotter" and yes, they use different technologies than typical inkjets. Some still use inkjet inks, but instead of spraying pixel dots through a jet, they have very fine tip pens that draw extremely precise lines.”

Negative. Ink jet, uses a very common print head. Sone of the older desktop printers used that head.
Hopefully the newer printers do better without so much cleaning. My experience is with older printers.

 

Not sure what you are saying negative to.

Plotters use pens. That, besides their size, is what makes them plotters instead of regular printers because plotters draw very fine, very precise lines. Note I said "some" use "inkjet inks" - maybe I should have said "some use the same inks as inkjets, but instead of jets, they use pens."

Anyway, this is OT and not helping the OP. So moving on.