Printers - AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[button_ripple]

We have a HP Business Inkjet 2800 in our ICT Suite. As i am new i have no idea of when it was purchased, all i can say is that it is rubbish. The printer runs out of ink at incredible speeds. The printer jams every few pages and it keeps claiming 'unexpected paper size'. The printer claims to print A3 - but it doesn't - it jams (what a surprise!!) and the auto-duplex unit requires the you to take the paper out and turn it round. (isn't that manual??). The head won't get rid of the printer until there is smoke pouring out of it or until it won't print at all.

 

What can we do? (she claims it was brought last year - it wasn't that one is on her own desk!)

[button_ripple]

Also - anyone got an Epson Aculaser C900? how can you get it to print quicker - it takes 5 minutes to come out of sleep mode and then another 5 to print the first page. After that it is a wonderful printer!

[elsiegee40]

Mysterious water leak in recent storms?

[Joanne]

*gasp!* I have 2 of those printers and they are ok! (unless people aren't telloing me about the problems) they are expensive!

 

My suggestion is to take it our for a day and give it a good clean... make sure that all the rollers are free from dust and all that. Take all the bits out and put them back together (trays, duplexer).

 

Take it off your server and reinstall it, making sure the correct paper is in the correct trays etc.

 

Make sure you use the most up to date drivers off hp website etc.

 

If this fails tell the head that the volume of printing done in the ICT suite requires a colour laser and put the inkjet in a room that would use it less.

[ChrisH]

I couldnt fault our BIJ 2800 until it went wrong recently. Very good on ink. Ours did develop a fault though where it was zapping the chips on the cartridges after about an hour saying they were empty. Apart from that I would have another one.

[contink]

My suggestion is to take it our for a day and give it a good clean... make sure that all the rollers are free from dust and all that. Take all the bits out and put them back together (trays, duplexer).

 

Take it off your server and reinstall it, making sure the correct paper is in the correct trays etc.

 

Make sure you use the most up to date drivers off hp website etc.

I'd go with this suggestion as well... Your paper feed problems are definitely roller related and there's kits out there for giving them a thorough clean. It's also worth checking to see if your paper is part of the cause. There's plenty of people who've reported specific brands cause residue build up on the rollers causing jams and the like. This is an HP generic thing when it comes to inkjets and reported on K550, L7000 series, 1100's, etc..

 

As for ink costs you could look at whether a CIS is feasible or possible but it does require a reasonable learning curve. The cartridge type are the HP10/11 cart and there are definitely kits out there with autoreset chips, etc... If nought else you could try and "fail" whilst trying to cut your overall costs

 

If this fails tell the head that the volume of printing done in the ICT suite requires a colour laser and put the inkjet in a room that would use it less.

Good idea... look at the costs... That's more likely to get results with a head than anything else

[contink]

Almost forgot.. if the autoduplexer is not working it's likely that it's got a bad connection or more likely people aren't setting up the preferences properly for the printer. Duplex and using "auto-duplexer" are two totally different things.

[witch]

Or, as you don't have time I'm sure -find a local company and get it properly serviced.

Then you will know which is a problem and which is just the machine

[strawberry]

Also - anyone got an Epson Aculaser C900? how can you get it to print quicker - it takes 5 minutes to come out of sleep mode and then another 5 to print the first page. After that it is a wonderful printer!

 

you dont, it has a 1 minute warm up, and does 4pages per min. On a very good day, most days it wont work in the slightest.

[webman]

Inkjets in a school? Ouch. Laserjets all the way...

[sunny_nunny]

We have a HP Business Inkjet 2800 in our ICT Suite. As i am new i have no idea of when it was purchased, all i can say is that it is rubbish. The printer runs out of ink at incredible speeds. The printer jams every few pages and it keeps claiming 'unexpected paper size'. The printer claims to print A3 - but it doesn't - it jams (what a surprise!!) and the auto-duplex unit requires the you to take the paper out and turn it round. (isn't that manual??). The head won't get rid of the printer until there is smoke pouring out of it or until it won't print at all.

 

What can we do? (she claims it was brought last year - it wasn't that one is on her own desk!)

 

Isn't it just terrible when children vandalise equipment beyond the point of repair?

 

;-)

[Geoff]

Also - anyone got an Epson Aculaser C900? how can you get it to print quicker - it takes 5 minutes to come out of sleep mode and then another 5 to print the first page. After that it is a wonderful printer!

 

To stop it from sleeping, disable the power saving.

 

To make it print faster, hook it up to a fast PC. It's a host based printer, so the PC is doing the grunt work.

[meastaugh1]

We have a HP Business Inkjet 2800 in our ICT Suite. As i am new i have no idea of when it was purchased, all i can say is that it is rubbish. The printer runs out of ink at incredible speeds. The printer jams every few pages and it keeps claiming 'unexpected paper size'. The printer claims to print A3 - but it doesn't - it jams (what a surprise!!) and the auto-duplex unit requires the you to take the paper out and turn it round. (isn't that manual??). The head won't get rid of the printer until there is smoke pouring out of it or until it won't print at all.

 

What can we do? (she claims it was brought last year - it wasn't that one is on her own desk!)

 

I've also got a couple of these and agree that they are rubbish, particularly when it comes to handling A3 (which is what they were primarily required to print). They were forever misfeeding, despite checking the rollers, paper path, tray margins etc. I've replaced them with a second hand CLJ 8550 and all now seems to be well.

 

I can't say I experienced the rapid consumption of ink, almost the opposite. Your driver isn't set to print best quality by default, is it?

 

As for the unexpected paper size, does the driver media sizes match those set on the printer? Also, are the input tray guides set correctly? The guides do seem to slip out of place fairly easily.

[john]

I find with most HP Printers which have media sensors on them, there is an option to turn them off so it just hopes and assumes that if your asking for an A3 print, you have actually put in A3 paper.

 

This is ok for areas where you can trust it to be fed / used correctly, but probably no good for open IT Room usage as if you put A4 in it, and its set to A3, you get a rather nice inky mess!