my hp v40 has given me many different errors. first it said carraige jam, it moves just not where it is suppose to, ie: won't come to the panel when door opens. 2nd error was "wrong black cartridge." I tried to reset" #3", won't print alignment page and is now asking for it. i already cleaned the cartridge contacts. any help? or is it junk. only 1 year 1 month old
hp officejet, power up after reset, runs a page through, pretends to print alignment page, then asks for it, nothing else, cartridges are all the way to the right and want to stay there.
Sounds like junk. I have an OJ 5110 that fakes printing out the alignment page. The feed rollers move but not the carriage. The carriage is not stuck because it does undock sometimes. No messages at all on the display about a 'stuck carriage'. I've tried a reset and jumped through all kinds of other hoops trying to make it work.
If you do find some way to bring it back to life, let me know.
I have the same problem w/ my v40. carraige goes to right side and pulls one page of paper through. then it says to clear carraige jam and hit enter. my v40 is also one year and one month old. I am upset.
My HP v40 refuses to unpark the printer cartridges from the right side with a "carriage jam" message. I also tried to get it to dock on the left side for ink cartridge replacement by opening the door to unblock the optics so that the service routien would call it over. I manually brought it over and it was stuck as I pulled it to the left. I closed the door, got a paper feed and the carriage returned to the right and stayed there when I initialized the unit. I think gears are binding or a mechanism has dropped to where it is now an obstruction. Any way I only had the unit one year, and I do not use it very often. I am greatly dissapointed. Anyone with a soulution yet?
I think regardless of how much you use it, there is a defect in the "service station" to the right side. The print carraige rests there so as to "protect" the ink cartridges.
After numerous attempts to clean the contraption I found if pull away (toward the rear side of the machince) the service station there is an area below which collects leakage, intentionally! If you look at the bottom of your printer you will see what looks like a sponge or maxi-pad looking object on that side. HP knew that there would be significant leakage and took that precaution. My presumption is that they never test that model past a year and never knew or cared what the result would be.
When I reached down below that service station I found a MOUND of ink, a stalagmite growing from the bottom of the offending box. Then I cleaned every square of it and it still didn't work. Next I called HP and had it out with one of the tech dudes. He was not able to tell me anything I didn't know and simply said that if were under warranty that they would replace it because the only pay to properly clean it would be to take the entire thing apart.
I threw it in the dumpster and bought a Lexmark x6170 (on special at OfficeMax for $149.99) with an EXTENDED WARRANTY.
If your read this whole rant, then you must be as pissed as I was.
Well, I am just posting to say.."DITTO". I bought my v40 on Feb 2, 2003. Naturally it is 2 weeks past warranty!!!! I have read the other rants and have the same exact problem. Carriage stalls on the right side...Spoke to HP, but not under warranty!!!! If anyone has a solution, I would be most grateful
Holy Cow! This exactly what my v40 has done! Just two days ago, all of a sudden it stopped printing and started "clunk clunk clunk" over on the side. I have called support, I have reviewed the support web pages, and I have even taken it apart and saw that black box on the right hand side that collects ink! I bought this thing December of 2002, and to talk to a service rep who MAY OR MAY NOT fix it will cost 30 bucks! That and two cartridges is 100 bucks - over half what I payed for it.
Geez. Thank you Carly Fiorna! You know, she was quoted as saying that "there is no job that is America's God-given right" when asked about outsourcing jobs to third world countries. Let us here send her the message "there is no consumer that is HP's God-given right," and buy our next printer from another company!!!!!!!!!!!
I do have an update. Here is the tale of how I found out what was wrong with my V40 Officejet. As you all know from my previous posting, my problem was the "carriage jam," and clunk-clunk sound of gears turning with nothing happening. Well, I unplugged it, and took it apart. It was challenging at times to find all the screws and pull the plastic covers off just-so, but eventually I made it to the deep insides. The black "ink well" on the right-hand side was still in-accessible, so I had to take the carriage guide off. That was tricky: the screws in the metal bar hold it down, along with a few on the back metal plate. I got the inkwell out, and lo and behold! A TOWER of ink from the bottom to the top where the ink cartridges would rest, stood tall and glistening. This thing leaked ALOT of ink! I grabbed some towels, and took it out, and took it apart. (I should have worn gloves). After scraping and cleaning all of the ink off all of the parts, I found the problem: a single plastic gear that connects the inkwell axle to the outside had a little tooth that broke off. The tooth was buried in the globs of ink, so I almost missed it. This single tooth sticks out from the middle of the gear, and is obviously going to break if there is some kind of obstruction inside the inkwell - like a GLISTENING TOWER OF INK. (Just like "lucas" above) So, right now I am trying to find out how I can order that one part. If any of you know how I could order it myself, instead of going through a repair shop, I would appreciate it. My theory in all this is that HP knew it was gonna leak like a sieve, and boy did it ever! All that ink built up inside, and soon the plastic gears just couldn't turn through it anymore. So that little tooth broke off, and now when it goes through one of it's cycles, it never completes the routine, so the software for the printer never lets it print anymore - because it never completes this cycle of whatever it does down there at the right-hand side. Hopefully, I will be able to put it back together so it works properly. I hope I don't have to line up the gears just-so when I do.
And that is my tale. I will let you all know when I finally get it working again. But to conclude, that tooth on that white plastic gear definately broke off, and I blame the gobs of ink.
P.S. I mis-spelled a name in my previous post. In order to make sure that Googlers find this page, the name of the CEO of Hewlett-Packard is Carly Fiorina, and she is quoted as saying, during a meeting in Washington D.C. about outsourcing jobs, that "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore." I am sure she wears an American flag on her lapel. I wonder why.
Jason I haven't taken apart a V40 yet but if it has the service station style that is driven by the paper feed drive rather than its own motor, you are in world of hurt. I've have seen this style in the Officejet 5110 and it looks identical to the notoriously unreliable Deskjet 3820. There are copious complaints about 'early' failure of the DJ 3820 due to carriage jams. Bottom line, if spare parts are not available for the DJ 3820, you won't find them for the V40.
I am a HP fan and recommend some of their printers, mostly out of production, but if the V40 shares the service station drive with the DJ 3820, I would kiss it goodbye. Typical ink build up should not break the service station drive. Many DJ 3820s have failed long before seeing the use that seems evident on your machine. The service station version with it's own drive motor, as seen on other models, has proven to be durable. The real problem is a poor design spawned by trying to save a dollar or two.
For what its worth, the OJ 5110 I mentioned was sent in for warranty and replaced by HP with a completely different machine, an OJ 5510. Could it be that HP wants that family of printer mechanism to go away?
I called HP - the "print mechanism assembly" (basically the printer without the case) costs 322 bucks through HP. I found some vendors selling them for about $250. That's funny, because I bought my printer for $180. Anyhoo, if anybody here wants to send me the parts I need, I can pay for postage plus a couple of bucks for your troubles. (See my previous postings for details).
I was given the printer to see if I could "fix" it. It was in an office for about a year and it is REALLY dusty and dirty there. It was working fine till they had to replace the cartridges. Plopped them in and it stuck.
The only reason they gave the thing to me was because my brother works on computers and thought, by osmosis, I could fix it. I looked at it for about 5 minutes and gave up! lol I'm glad I didn't give it any more time after reading all the postings. It could have saved me 5 minutes. Everything mentioned above is exactly what went on with this large paperweight.
P.S. They bought a new one not solely based on how it was working. They did it cause the cartridges were too expensive for the price they paid for the machine.
Hello everyone. Well I have an HP V40. I bought it on July 2001. It was working fine, but now I get a paper jam message but there is no paper jam. It keeps flashing paper jam error, and it wont do anything else. If anyone have any idea how to fix this problem i will appreciate it. Thank you so much in advance. Marisa
The main error in HP v40 is the decision to buy one in the first place. After reading all your post and experiencing the same problems I can offer no advise or ideas for share in your sorrow while understanding your pain...the pain in ass this machine has caused us
I have a 5110 w/ the same problem. Still on original cartridges but over a year old! It says paper jam but there is no "paper jam. Took it apart and found the little tooth on the gear driving the cartridge cleaning mechanism was broken. Don't see any way for the machine to tell that the cleaning mech. was not working so problems MIGHT not be related. Just TWO common problems this poor design has.
Seem like there MUST be a lawyer somewhere that might want to start a class action lawsuit!
HP SHOULD fix these units as it is an obviously poor design!!!
I loved my HP V40. When it turned 1 year, 2 months old I experienced the EXACT same problems as many of you-- it started with a paper jam message and then a progressed into a carriage jam message. It attempts to print an alignment page, but never prints anything.
I took the plunge and took it into a local printer repair shop. This is what they told me and what confirms Jason's diagnosis:
They found that the carriage service station gear was broken. Unfortunately, this part is no longer available. How cute and how typical!
By the way, the part is number C8413C.
I am hoping to buy a unit cheap on Ebay from a non-working unit (without the same symptoms) and scavenge the part.
I would be MOST interested in joining in a class action lawsuit!
P.S. I bought, as a replacement a HP 5510. It arrived and got sent back the next day. This model is a cheap piece of junk! HP makes a 5110 model that is a little bit up from the V40, but costs $192 at Amazon.com.
Bottom line is, I want my V40 to work like it did. I find it VERY curious that so many of us experienced the identical problem just as the warranty was up.
Well, the amazing thing was that MINE broke a month BEFORE the warranty ran out. I called HP and went throught all the hoops with their technician, THEN he said I had to FAX in a copy of my sales slip as THEIR records showed it was out of warranty. I faxed (the FAX part still worked) in the proof and then called HP back. Got an Indian ( a REAL one from India), who could hardly speak english, who told me I had to wait 24 hrs after FAXing in the proof before he could help me. I insisted on something happening NOW as I was told by the first tech that I could call back as soon as I faxed the proof of purchase. HE HUNG UP ON ME!
I called back and go a VERY nice tech who lived on Cape Bretton (sp?) Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, who made me jump through ALL the hoops again as apparently, there was no record of either of my other calls.
After about an hour of trying to get it working, He finally gave up and said he would authorize a replacement, but the 5110 was no longer made so he would be sending me the NEW model, a 5510. After taking my credit card info in case I didn't send them back the old one, He "OVERNIGHT" shipped the new one.
The new one is smaller and has a plate scanning feature that is nice but, it ALSO uses some tiny #56 & #57 ink cartridges. Now I have a hundred dollars worth of spare ink cartridges and no way to use them, and I have to go out and buy NEW spares. It seems no matter what, the consumer always gets screwed somehow.
So far, the new one seems to be working fine.
There is a "lemon law" that covers some thing like this situation but I don't know if it would apply here. There is obviously a bad design involved and, in that each one who has written probably represents 10,000 units that have broken, it seems like SOMETHING should be done.
HP should be forced to recall and replace ALL units using this design. Just wonder if their "replacement" is designed any better!
Did some research, the service station gears are only available through an HP ASP, I am one and I have verified the part numbers are in stock and orderable, (the service station is the part that gets filled with waste ink).
The little gear is part number C4557-40079, the big gear is part number C5870-40017.
Unfortunately the way the company I work for does things it is difficult to resell cheap parts, maybe Moe will be kind enough to order a couple of dozen gears and resell them.
Thanks for pointing out my error on the part number. When I took it in for repair they put that down for what I assumed to be the part number.
The repair shop is an authorized service center. It's funny that they wouldn't know this, as they would have made more money off of me fixing the thing rather than just telling me it couldn't be fixed.
Well, this printer could have broken down any day but today! I assured my sister that I would have her son's graduation flyers and invitations printed out by tomorrow and this piece of crap has shown its true colors!
I am the proud owner of a hp officejet v40 that worked like a charm in the beginning, and now the carriage remains stuck on the right side and will not print anything. Its only good for grinding its gears while the carriage remains locked in place. And it makes the most dreadful noise.
I feel like I am ready to go postal about this HP sham operation! We consumers have been victimized and taken to the bank by this company and we should do something about this collectively.
TRy cleaning the rubber rollers front and back with some rubber roller cleaning, which used to be available on the site. It celared the paper jam on my officejet R60
I have a officejet 5110 and had it exactly one year and one week before the inkwell cleaning station had a broken gear that a replacement part is not available by HP.....Can you say CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT!
HP sells junk! I bought an the v40 one year and one month ago. It broke down with the "jam" problems and finally just stopped altogether after just 6 months! So, ok, no problem, I get a "replacement", which turns out to be the ugly sister of the v40-- the OJ 5110. This thing has stopped printing yellow ink and the tech people say there's nothing I can do about it. My warranty was up last month. We are all victims of a lemon. Isn't there a lemon law?? DONT BUY THE 5110, it's the same thing with a new name! In fact, I may be done with HP altogether.
I have had success cleaning the office jet v40. Mostly the service station clogs with ink. To clean this machine you need to clean the encoder strip, the plastic strip that runs behind the carriage with water damp lint free cloth. Then clean the rod that the carriage rides on with water and put a light coat of 3 and 1 oil on the rod. Be sure to put a couple of drops behind the 2 silver metalic rings on the side of the carridge. If the carridge does not relase or has trouble parking then you mave have to much waste ink in the service station, this will be the large peak of ink you see, If this is the case then you will need to remove the cover and take the service station out and wash it out. IT MAKES A GREAT BIG MESS.
I'm on my way to buy a Canon Photo Printer i860 right now to replace our HP OJ 5110 replacement for our HP v40. The only way HP will improve is by consumers not purchasing their *junk*. BTW, they make their profit off of sales of ink cartridges, not their printers. With my Canon (rated #1 by Consumer Reports) I will no longer need to buy HP ink. Yippee!
I had the same problem with the carriage moving to the right and not coming back to the left when the carteidge door is opened. My unit is 1 year 4 months old. I get the CLEAR CARRIAGE JAM, AND PRESS ENTER message. There is no carriage jam and no matter what I do it won't work. I now know why aftering reading these comments.
I called HP and was connected to someone in India. He wanted me to give him my credit card over a non secured line to India. I said no way. He acted as if this was not a problem. Anyone giving a credit card no. over a non secured line is nuts. You are asking for problems especially if it is going to India.
I always used the HP cartridges but recently started using the cartridge OD215 from Office Depot. I wonder if there is a problem with these substitute cartridges as they have more ink in them than HP. Maybe the weight of the extra ink forces out the bottom and causes the problem. What is your experience with cartidges you were using in this piece of junk???
"Press enter to align cartridges", I do that but it quits halfway through and then says "alignment failed". I was given this v40 and don't have any manuals on it. What can I do?
"Press enter to align cartridges", I do that but it quits halfway through and then says "alignment failed". I was given this v40 and don't have any manuals on it. What can I do?
Earlier today I went into my v40 to change the black ink cartridge, something I've done dozens of times before. As you all know I'm sure it's not a difficult process. Well I removed the old c6615d and replaced it with the new c6615d cartridge, again same as I've done before only this time I got an error message telling me it was the "incorrect black cartridge type". I have since repeated the process several times only to get the same message. I have hunted everywhere for a solution short of calling HP, I've done that in the past - wasn't a pleasant experience. Anyone have any ideas how I can get my v40 to work again?
I have the same exact carriage error problem (v40), stuck on the right side making that lovely grinding noise. Any luck fixing it? Any word on a recall? HP needs to step up and admit this thing is crap. I am very upset over this and may not buy anything from HP ever again. Should I give up and toss it in the trash? I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't afford to buy a new printer every 13 months.
Me too. Same exact v40 carriage jam problem. Our printer is exactly 1yr & 3months old. Tore the whole thing down to find the tiny gear in the cleaning station to be broke exactly as described by "jason" on 3/1/04 above. Count me in on the class-action lawsuit as well!
OK so my HP v40 is toast because the cartridge will not dock at the right (rams into the docking carriage which is out of position) because of I the ink globs all over the gears. I started to take it a part and what a nightmate to get at the ink well gearing. I gave up. So here is the question. Does anyone know how to disable the print feature so you can still use the scan and fax features on this machine? I assume since the scanner is on top it would still work. I could scan to the computer and send faxes. I know I can't print with it but I have another printer. I can't get anything to work because it keeps coming up with the same error CLEAR CARRIAGE JAM AND PRESS ENTER. Any ideas guys???
Bill, I think all of it is worthless because there is no way to get rid of the error message. If you figure out how be sure to post it here.
Gina, I have sent many emails to HP also with no response. They had to have known that this thing was junk and at the very least they owe us all an apology for a very, very bad product. The frustration has taken at least one year from my life.
The cleaning tray is not moving because the little tab on the gear that moves it is broken like all the other units discussed here. AND Bill is right, getting to the mechanism that drives the cleaning tray IS a nightmare. You pretty well have to dis-assemble the printer completely.
You SHOULD be able to push the cleaning tray towards the rear of the printer and get it out of the way of the ink tray. Then it can go ALL the way over and the error message might clear.
Also, it is important to clean the indexing ribbon that tell the ink tray where it is. If it has ANY ink on it, everything goes to hell, so to speak.
In my experience, most companies are NOT going to do anything about such problems unless and until they are forced to by litigation.
SOMEONE is going to have to find a lawyer who is willing to take on HP and THEIR IN-House legal department. Any lawyer willing to do this is going to have to be willing to invest potentially years of work and delays fighting any big corporation but if he prevales, it usually will net him millions in legal fees. Of course, ALL his fees and expenses will usually eat up virtually ALL monies realized in any settlement and the actual persons harmed will get virtually nothing.
What amazes me is how to take that piece of shit printer apart. HP really did a nice job making sure it was next to impossible to do this task.
My HP is 1 year and 1 month, as most of you, bought in April 2003. This is unreal, forget about class-action lawsuit, HP knows well the chance enough people would spend the time and the effort to go against them is pretty slim, espacially for les than $200.
For me, garbage collection is Monday morning, and I will make sure I hammer the piece of shit, in case somebody decides to pick it up and waste valuable time trying to give it a second life...
I have not tried to take my V40 apart and clean it yet. Should I even waste the time? Has anyone taken theirs apart and had any luck? I just would hate to throw it away and then find out I could have fixed it.
Same symptoms as described. Haven't disassembled and now probably won't. Sounds like a paper weight. Too bad. It worked good for a while. Would be interested in taking it to HP for compensation.
I had exactly the same carriage problem with my 5110. I googled across this website http://www.fixmybrokenprinter.com that showed me how to sort the problem. It contains information on the DeskJet 3820 but I found that the gear that breaks in the 5110 is identical to that in the 3820. I ripped my OfficeJet apart and sent my broken gear to England. The repaired gear came back in less than a week. Fitted the repaired part and everything works perfectly. Superb!!! Just like a new printer!
HP Officejet 5110 all-in-one, grind grind, blink blink. Do I need to say anymore? Oh yes, it is one year and 3 months old and has been fed a steady diet of HP cartridges.
I went searching for ways to fix my V40 and unfortunately I ended up here. Ours is 1 year and 3 months. I have the same problems as everyone else. Anyone come up with a good replacement?
Add me to the list of hp officejet v40 carriage jam error recipients. I have a hp laserjet 4l tucked in the corner which stills works fine so at least I have a printer. I will be taking my printer apart today. I give my thanks to Google and all of you who have posted messagess. Count me in on the law suit. I will send my printer repair results.
Like everyone here I've had it with this thing. One year and one month also. I'm going into the driveway tomorrow and smash it into a million pieces, then box it up. I'm going to ship it to:
Hewlett-Packard Company (Corporate Headquarters) Attn: Peter Blackmore, Executive Vice President, Customer Solutions 3000 Hanover Street Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185 USA
I'm also going to include a note with this web address. If nothing else, it'll clutter his office for a day just like it's cluttering mine!
Just brought a v40 home to fix from someone at my other job. Same problem! The reason,(NOT A FIX) for the "carriage jam" error is the Service Station is stuck because of the broken gear. if you reach in with your hand and move the Service station (far right side where the carriage tries to rest) toward the back of the printer, the error will clear when the v40 is turned on because the carriage will rest in its appropriate position. This does NOT fix the problem, it just clears the obstruction, which is the service station that no longer moves and prevents the printer from doing it's main function, printing! I will have to tell my co-worker the bad news and give him this web address so he can read it for himself. No wonder HP and Compaq are together. I had a new Compaq computer in '98 that didn't even have the minimum system requirements for processor speed or RAM to run the DVD player it came with! Not to mention a load of driver errors and a junk HD that got so slow, my friends much slower computer would load games 3 times as fast! Yes it was the HD. Put in a new seagate and it improved drastically. Put in more memory and overclocked it as far as I could and it would play DVD's without a pause. Cutting corners--- too bad the fix for this printer is not as easy as upgrading your pc which took me over a year of struggling and some more knowledgable friends to find a solution.
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Well, one idea is to write your state rep or Gov or someone like that who can get things done, especially if you are in HP's home state. State reps and Gov's like being re-elected, and using the proper motivation, government officials "can " get things done. I'll bet just about every one of HP's printers with this system has failed. Thats a lot of printers and a lot of unhappy people who feel cheated by HP. Think of how popular a govener or state rep who does something would be, even if he failed. Its something that seems impossible like a previous post described, but as you saw with Microsoft, no matter how big a company you are, if the government stands to gain something from upholding the law, then you are not above the law. Re-election is a big gain for any official. There are other laws concerning business practices and honesty that would go a long way with the right people. This is supposed to be a nation "BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE" and you are the people!
Thanks everyone for your posts. They are helping a lot of people.
I've had my V40 for 1 year and 3 months - same problem! Count me in for a class action. I was a dedicated HP customer, but their indifference to a known problem with their product and the customers that pay their salaries has caused me to change my mind.
I am interested in acquiring the gears as well, assuming that we all can find a way to purchase them.
I'm also looking for a replacement combo printer, fax, scanner. Anyone have better experience with another vendor?
The cost of the parts including shipping/handling is about $25. I don't want to spend any more money on this piece of junk unless there is a chance of fixing it.
I spent two hours and failed to clear the error message. I found the mound of ink which was interferring with the slinding docking tray. Could not find any broken teeth on any of the gears. However, I did not take apart the lower drive shaft. Is there a breakdown drawing of the v40? I am shopping for a new (non-hp) machine this week.
I have not been able to find any drawings for the V40 yet. You can find pictures here : http://www.fixmybrokenprinter.com/ Model is different, but parts are essentially the same as the v40.
I called Printerworks.com this morning to ask if those parts would fit the V40. They said I would have to refer to HP. Luckily, I did not order the parts from them. Based on drawings that I have seen, these parts are for printers that have independent motor drive for the service station, unlike the v40.
The photos you posted is really amazing. My broken gears look identical to the ones in the photos, down to details such as the shape and area of the small gear that broke, the green tint, and the crack line in the large gear. I mean identica !!! Oh well, now is down to repairing the gears by ourselves. Or send them to England to be fixed http://www.fixmybrokenprinter.com/
I am looking at differnt ways of repairing the gears myself. Seems like some kind of brass sleeve insert may work, at least for the small gear. But I don't have a machine shop to do it.
"These two part numbers are listed as working with the Officejet R40. None of my tools show any reference to those parts being compatible with an Officejet V40 as well. The only part that I find that would replace that section on a V40, would be part number: C8413-60002 (Print mechanism assembly - Does not include outer plastic panels, ADF, scanner, paper trays, or print cartridges )
Judging by the information that I have found, it appears to be most of the lower half of the printer."
Does anyone know if hp's current low-cost model 3520 printer has the same gear design as the v40. The hp 3520 costs only $50. I'm thinking about striping the gears from it if they are the same. This way I can at least savage my remaining inventory (>$100 worth) of ink cardridges for this stupid printer.
I have reviewed the pics of the broken gears. Thanks for the pics. They clear up why I could not see the broken portion on the teeth. The teeth are not broken but the drive tabs are.
I have fixed a many of things like this ranging from motor parts, fishing reels, and pumps with JBWELD. Nothing fixed thus far has broken again.
Here is what I will try to do if my gears are similarily damaged, the drive tab being stripped.
Drill a small hole in the plastic wheel where the center of the tab will be formed. Use a small screw and set the screw such that the screw and its head acts as a stud for the new formed tab(s). The head of the screw should be low enough such that the JBWELD can be used to form the tab on the top. I use foil to make a form to cast the JBWELD around the screw--the foil will be sanded away. Make sure you create a tab bigger than the orginal. Use a file or emry board to machine the tab to final shape. Use tooth picks to mix and place JBWELD.
Don't laugh, JBWELD is a very good product for this and if done correctly the repair can be made. If there is a colar, then both tabs can be formed with the colar--this would be a better structural fix.
Here is my attempt to fix the gear problem on my v40. The idea is to insert a metal collar between the two gears to restore the function of the broken tab in the small gear. The collar was made from a piece of straight copper tubing that had roughly the same inside diameter as the i.d. of the gears. I cut the tubing to about the same length as the width of the sleeve of the small gear. I then soldered a copper tab that protruded out to the side facing the larger gear. Then I cut a 180 deg arc from the other side of the collar. This side would interface with the small gear that also had a 180 deg arc trimmed off its sleeve. After that, the collar would mate with the small gear with little slack. In order to fit the collar into the existing space, I had to trim off the sleeve of the small gear a bit. The land (remaining 360 deg portion)of the collar was about 1.25 mm wide. See photos : http://mywebpages.comcast.net/nospam04/Gear/gear1.jpg http://mywebpages.comcast.net/nospam04/Gear/gear2.jpg http://mywebpages.comcast.net/nospam04/Gear/gear3.jpg http://mywebpages.comcast.net/nospam04/Gear/gear4.jpg
For the copper tubing, I used 2#18 Buchanan Crimp Splice Cap (Home Depot) which happened to be roughly the right size. The fabrication took me about 2 hours last night using a Dremel Tool with a #420 cutting disc, and a soldering iron. I am sure that there are more quicker elegant ways of making the collar and making it stronger if one had access to a machine shop.
The printer has been working smoothly (no grinding noises etc.) since I made the fix. Hopefully, it will work awhile at least for my remaining ink cartridges. After that NO MORE HP !! POS
Great solutions - thanks very much! It's great to know that people are prepared to put in a little effort to bring their printer back to life. I am sure that more people can now do this with your information. We can reduce waste and we don't have to feel like we have lost hundreds of dollars on a printer and ink.
click click grind kerplunk, i hate this thing. just wanted to thank everyone for posting..it helps to know i'm not the only one struggling. but i wanted to let everyone know my disgust with HP right now. I am basically the "fix it" guy for a pediatric clinic and this isn't like not being able to print off an email.
VERY serious faxes come through here everyday so this is a huge set back. The worst part about it all is that people who send the faxes believe that we have received them. Little do they know we invested our money in HP, something I can't imagine us doing again anytime soon.
I've hadmy HP 5110 for about 13 months now. I recently separated from the military. I completed a phone interview with a very prominant company when low and behold, my 5110 decides to stop working with when I tried to fax them my military separation papers. The timimg with this thing is incredible!!! Now i'm stuck with an "all-in-none" that does nothing but flash an amber light at me. I'be donr everything I could to clear this "carriage jam". But it still refuses to work. And being in between jobs is a very bad time to not have the use of my fax. After a failed laptop, laser printer and this, i'm done with HP. If you guys decide to go class-action, please let me know.
My v40 seems to work fine, however it will not print. It doesn't make funny noises, it doesn't display any error messages, however when I try to print, the v40 displays "printing" on the screen and just sits there, laughing at me. Could anyone explain this problem?
It's absolutely uncanny that so many people have experienced the same problem with the same product and HP has done nothing to address the issue. I have had my 5110 for 14 months. In the midst of a fax, the machine started to make a horrible grinding noise. You know the rest of the story. I am not a happy camper!!!!!
It's absolutely uncanny that so many people have experienced the same problem with the same product and HP has done nothing to address the issue. I have had my 5110 for 14 months. In the midst of a fax, the machine started to make a horrible grinding noise. You know the rest of the story. I am not a happy camper!!!!!
LET ME JOIN THE CROWD. SAME THING. PRINTER WORKED FINE THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN CARRIAGE JAM, OPEN DOOR, PRESS ENTER MESSAGE. HAVE DONE THE SAME. CALLED HP, FOLLOWED DIRECTIONS ON REPAIR, STILL NOTHING. DOES LOOK LIKE SMALL GEAR BROKE ON RIGHT SIDE MAKING CLICKING NOISE. IF YOU HAVE THIS CLICKING PROBLEM. 1. PRESS ENTER AND LOOK WITH FLASH LITE AT A SMALL COPPER PIECE UNDER WHERE CARTRIDGE CARRIAGE WOULD BE IF THERE.2. GIVE IT A MINUTE AND YOU WILL HERE THE CLUNKING AND IT LOOKS LIKE IT IS NOT MAKING A CONNECTION TO THE LITTLE PLASTIC WHEEL.EVERYBODYS RIGHT JUNK! SHOULD GET A CLASS ACTION SUIT GOING. I'M WILLING
Let me know if there is a class action...My printer is doing the same thing as everyone elses (cartidge to right, won't move left unless manually pulled).
Too bad we didn't all know that this machine was such a piece of junk before we bought them. After 1 year and a month of light use the thing indicated that it needed its ink cartridges alined. Followed procedures, it claimed it couldn't accomplish alinement. Two weeks later it was receiving a fax, the paper drive made a bunch of destructive sounding grinding/ripping noises, and since then, the paper drive system is as silent as a church. It makes everything that needs printing useless. This machine sounds like the proverbial lemon. I know in H/P's eyes, the cost of the unit wasn't much, but I have a VCR that cost the same amount 10 years ago that is still running well. Guess H/P is profit driven rather than performance and quality driven. If there is a class action lawsuit going to happen about this piece of junk, let me know. Meantime, I'll go buy a Brother. They're not good, but they don't charge a fortune for them either.
OK. I have some good news. We had the same problem as everyone else with our v40. It died after 1 year and 3 months.
We went to the HP website and found the CEO's email address. My partner then wrote an email to them describing the situation and how we had contacted tech support which was of no help and that we thought HP had some sort of "built in obselesence".
The next day we recieved a call from an HP representative and 1 week later we recieved our new 5110 with a return slip for the broken one.
Our new machine works like a charm and I was very impressed with HP's quick resolution of our problem. I will continue to purchase products from them.
Thanks ayone! I took your advice and emailed the CEO detailing the difficulties. We'll see what happens. My college has a lot of HP equipment. It might encourage them to treat us likewise.
The problem is that the 5110 seeems to have the same problems as the older ones (see letter from "KCJ" above). Not going to be much help if they are junk also.
HP replaced my unit with a 5110 (it ACTUALLY broke a month BEFORE the warrenty period was up!) but now I am stuck w/ $100.00 worth of print cartridges I bought for the old unit.
Buy the way I forgot to mention in my previous response that I went to office max and bought new cartridges about a month ago. While looking over the twin packs for the color and black ink I notice one was more money but the same size cartridge. When I asked the sales clerk why this was, he said that that h/p recently came out with the more expensive ones, and that the one's that we have been purchasing all along for this printer and other's that h/p only fills the cartridge half way. Sounds pretty deseving to me. I know I always thought I was buying a full cartridge. ANYBODY ELSE EVER HEAR THAT!
My officejet v 40 has the carriage jam error and i have cleaned it and followed all the stupid steps on the website for the printer and it still says carriage jam. The carriage can move all the way to the right when the test print page is done but right after it moves to the right it stops, beeps at me, then says carriage jam. Has this happened to anyone? If so can i fix it?
By all means, open the window first! However, you might want to wait. One chap got a pickup order for the derelict machine and a free replacement. I just got a communication from the CEO of HP. She may do something for us here at Blackburn College. Anyone else may be able to get on the bandwagon, so to speak. I'll keep you informed.
Hello Fellow Frustrated Officejetters! Same problems as you all have so elequently described. My head is still spinning reading all the postings especially you folks who figured out how to BUILD spare parts! I would love to join a class action suit but believe it would be weighed down by litigation for both sides. At least I changed my mind last night standing in front of Walmart and DIDN'T buy more ink cartridges. So I almost feel like I saved money. Will try to find HP'S CEO E-mail address so I can pass along to her all of our warmest thoughts. Good luck to all and thanks for being so helpful and supportive.
Keep getting an error from my print queue. In this middle of printing i get an error which stops the printing. I then do a restart, but it happens again and again. I've lost a lot of expensive stock doing this over and over again. I thought it was a driver problem, but HP says my driver is ok.
If someone can help, pls lemme know. In the meantime, i'd suggest the BBB get's a few of our complaints. thx!
Well I will be a monkey's uncle. I have the same exact problem. printer is just over a year old and I have tried everything to clear jam. Count me in on that lawsuit
what we need to do is try and get the address of the main person at h/p and try and print off all these messages. OH WAIT A MINUTE WE CAN'T--- PRINTER DON'T WORK. MAYBE THEY PLANNED IT THAT WAY. seriously we should and send it to them. what do you think!
Got a call from HP today. Their rep. said that if I could find the invoice for the thing (v40 Junk)that they'd send a replacement unit for free. I have faxed them the invoice. Suggest everyone in this file do likewise. This might discourage building junk, or at least testing it somewhere other than in our homes and businesses.
The only solace I can find with this POC is that I spent 20 bucks for it at a yardsale. I got 8 months of printing out of it.....and of course, it breaks down when students are faxing me their final exams. I guess HP stands for Horse Pile.
I took David's fix, modified it for someone that has no dremel tool and soldering iron. I went to home depot bought 11 cents worth of copper wire. Tore my printer apart, wound a tiny strand of copper wire around the gear, making a knot where the worn down part was. put the POC back together started it up, and viola, passed the "carraige is busted bozo" message. But wait. I get a message that my printers memory is full, "ok" I say. I will see what happens when I try to print something anyway. It deletes the document while in que. 3 hours, ink stains everywhere, I look like a bad imitation of Al Jolson, down 11 cents and I still have no working printer. To top it off- I bought the damn thing at a yard sale!!! When all of you go dancing down the street with wads of c-notes in your hands because of some lawsuit, I will still be gutting the damn thing, looking for some gluttonous memory chip that has eaten far to many documents. Hewlett Packard---I curse you- Everything HP I have bought has S-U-C-K-E-D (Well mabye the refurbished PC I got for 2 bills ain't so bad-but it had to be refurbished FIRST)
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been in the office machines service business for 14 years. In this time, technology has made leaps forward. Faster speeds, better graphics, photo quality, etc., for less costs. You have to understand the thinking of the manufactures of these products. Sell a low priced item, make the money on the supplies (cartridges, etc.). Most users will buy the cheapest priced machine with the most bells and whistles for that price and expect it to last a long time. The life expectancy for an ink type officejet or deskjet printer is three years. That's because users don't do basic cleaning and lubrication intervals on a annual basis. They wait until the machine has a problem. At that point the wear and tear has caused a "unrepairable" issue. Also, A purchaser will assume that because the equipment is named an "Officejet" the intended use is for an "Office environment". This creates over use of the machine. I would suggest that you read the maximum volume of pages per month printed allowed, and divide by two to match the monthly volume of pages you need to print. This will make the machines wear in a more timely fashion. Don't get me wrong, I'm as mad as anyone for what HP has done to the market. They have a purchaser go to their website to get support and try their best to have them deal with them for the service. They have taken the low end market away from the small service guy. This is hurting the small "Mom and Pop" shops and taking the service choices out of the hands of the customer!!
Very well stated Nat. I couldn't agree with you more. Like you said, the customer tries to get the cheapest bang for the buck. The other companies, like the Korean ones put out cheaper machines, cutting into HPs share. HP has no choice but to cheapen their machines in order to compete at the same price level and hope to make it up with ink sales. I think the 3 year figure you give is a bit optimistic. I'd put it closer to 2 years, with a lot of the new OfficeJets being 13 month wonders (just past the guarantee period).
Thank you for this thread. I have an 8 month old 5110 with the same fault. After reading the horror stories posted here, I decided that a repair or replacement would be inadequate. In Australia we have a consumer right known as "not of merchantable quality". With the long history posted here and my problems, I confronted the merchant who originally sold this item. I stood my ground and after an hour they agreed to my request for a refund. Lucky for them I promptly turned around and used this credit on purchasing a canon mp390 (more expensive, but hopefully worth it). After acheiving this result, the merchant informed me that they reached HP support in India who said that HP were not in a position to refund only replace. It would have been a different story if the unit was one month younger (so much for 12 month warranty). I praise the merchant for eventually supporting my view based on the weight of evidence presented here, however HP have shown their colours in peddling what can only be described as a very substandard product with built in obsolescence. This is not my first time I have had to put up with substandard manufacturing on new items in the past two years, but I must say as a fed up consumer, I have now decided to take a stand and it is unfortunate for HP that I have chosen to make an example of them and their shoddy product. Thank you for bulletin boards such as this, it empowers consumers with power and evidence to support our suspicions about the multi-nationals making crap for profit. NOT FROM THIS LITTLE BLACK DUCK!!!!!!!
I didn't ask for cheap, (price AND quality) that's all that seems to be available. Not to slam HP entirely, I have a Deskjet 712-C that is still running smoothly. It wasn't made in China, and did cost $200.00. Considering the headaches of getting service, parts, and the downtime involved, I would much rather pay more for something that will run reliably for 10 years or so. All of my home appliances were built in the '80s and still running without a service call. My IBM Selectric II is ancient, but still serves well. I would think that printers and gear like this could be built to the same standards. If not, maybe an average life, such as you find on light bulbpackages, could be published along with the equipment specifications in order to make a better selection at the time of purchase.
From David to Nick who wrote "I took David's fix, modified it for someone that has no dremel tool and soldering iron. I went to home depot bought 11 cents worth of copper wire ....." A copper wire is probably not able to withstand the torque exerted by the gear. In fact the torque is high enough that the soldered tab (see my fix posted on 5/25) broke off only after a week of use. I now have the tab made directly from the one piece of copper tubing (and so it is stronger). The printer has been running fine ever since.
It is amazing how many people have the same problem. My hp deskjet 3820 has been grinding, kicking and screaming since we bought the system. It's just over a year old. Yesterday I got the print cartridge stalled message. I do not have the expertise or the inclination to try and repair this problem and it is obviously not an easy fix. I have had more problems with this system (hp pavillion 542X) than you can imagine. I have spent countless hours on the phone w/tech support. The computer it self has been shipped back to hp for repairs twice! The last time supposedly they replaced the motherboard. Lucky me, now the sound card is bad and so is the printer and of course my warranty has expired! I will never by anything with hp on it again. NOT EVEN AN INKPEN! Could someone please send me the name and address of the CEO.
Don't know her mailing address, but you may e-mail her at www.hewlettpackard.com. Select 'company information' on the main page and then 'corporate executive team' on the next page. Carly Fiorina is at the top of the list as CEO. There is a place in her area to select 'send e-mail'. I heard from them in less than a week. Good luck.
We received a new 5110 free of charge from H-P last Friday with a pickup order for the dead v40. I realize that the carriage drive system is the same, but it MAY have been updated for reliability. Time will tell, but at least we have a working machine now. There is a good ending to some stories.
Steve, Good luck. My 5110 died after 8 months with the same fault. It appears if you do some preventative maintenance not outlined in the HP manual, you may delay the inevitable failure.
At the 14 mo. mark my carriage is jamming on the right as well, but my question is as follows: I hear a clunking noise, but my carrier still moves freely if I manually move it. Since the carrier can still move the gears must be intact, right? In this case is it the ink buildup, the indexing ribbon, or what? Any ideas? I only wanted this thing to last 2 years since I paid $150... but 14 mos is not quite long enough IMO.
thanks steve. i sent a e-mail to carly and also put in the e-mail this web site address and told her she should read all the compalints. maybe it will do some good
Stephen : Are you trying to say that the v40s with broken gears just need some "cleaning and lubrication", and they will work fine again ? Or are you trying to say there is nothing wrong with the v40s and the broken gears is just a fragment of our imagination ?
Wow, I'm amazed at how many people are having the same problems. My v40 first did the "paper jam" thing when there wasn't one then started making these horrible noises, and now it just says "self-test" and I can't even get it to turn off at the on/off button. so far in all the readings above it sounds like I should get a new printer( different brand and all) What are some good choices?
I just sent this to HP - No clue what they will do. I will keep you updated
Your Officejet V40 has a design flaw. Investigation of the ink cartridge docking station shows significant ink drainage. Gradually the ink flows from the cartridges into the docking station. The ink accumulates to a certain point then enters the docking station gears. The gears jam, causing the printer to break. Coincidentally I have owned this printer for 14 months, 4 months past the manufactures warrantee.
I spent $200 for the printer and used dozens of ink cartridges. Including the four unopened cartridges I still have, I have poured nearly $500 into this Hewlett-Packard product for a years worth of work.
The plausible built in obsolescence of this machine has evoked suspicions upon the ethics of Hewlett-Packard. I would like to know what you will do remunerate this situation.
excellent letter evan. hope it works. I sent one myself along with this page. they sent me a reply saying because of the printer being out of warranty i they would send me some kind of probably junk replacement for anywhere from $140 to $200 dollars. good luck! keep all of us updated. by the way, did you know that h/p only fills there new cartridges only half way. this according to a sales person at office max where i got new cartridges......more suspicion on ethics.
I wish I found this site before I tossed my broken and compleatly dismantled v40. I have the owners manual, unopened cartridges and the original reciept. guess we'll see.
Evan don't hold your breath waiting for HP to respond. What you got looks to me like a standard electronic blow off reply. They keep pretending there is no problem. They even go so far as to take your money if you call in for tech help. HP's V40 is a joke.
I also noticed the cartridges were not completely filled. I wonder if there is a problem with filling them completely. Maybe the extra weight of the ink makes it leak faster and they won't make their 1 year warranty.
When you take the printer a part you will see a column of half dried black ink which when it gets high enough wipes on the carriage drive shaft. Eventually it works its way down the shaft on to to gears and carriage slides. When it is good and gummy the carriage won't slide easy so the motor forces the gear to turn and pop goes the gear. This will always be a problem even if you fix it unless you clean it out periodically. To do this is not easy as you have to take a lot of stuff a part.
This V40 is a cheap, cheap, cheap not easy to fix piece of junk!!!!
Just got this today from the letter I sent to the CEO link (I'm sure Carly Fiorina reads) The message was cc'd to email.ecag@hp.com. Yes it's another generic one Bill. I'm just going through the whole process. Hopefully people will be able to get something from HP, instead of just getting shafted.
I'm all about the lawsuit but fear the most money that will be made will be to the lawyers. Using those vultures is the last resort. IF we can find a way to get a decent replacement fairly easy, even out of warrantee, then why not. If they try to send me one with the same leaky ink cartridge docking station, then they are sorry. Everyone feel free to use my letter to get their attention if the same thing happened to you. I would like to see some of the other letters that were sent to HP. Lets make it a simple as possible for anyone who finds this site to get your “defective” printer replaced. No hassles no Problems and a machine that is good.
Before the times of the internet, HP(for example) customers had no way of finding out if others were having the same problems they were. I don’t even know of one other actual person that owners a v40. That’s what Hp counted on. At most you could know of three or four others with the same model as you, hardly a leg to stand on. They will send a few people a replacement and make millions off of sales from that product because no one knows that it is jacked. Now that we have many people as proof, HP’s and many others days of shady practice are limited.
Dear Evan:
Thank you for taking the time to send HP your comments. They have been forwarded to the appropriate people within Hewlett-Packard for their information and/or action. Should more clarification or information be needed, you may be contacted directly. Your input is important to us and very much appreciated.
I know the Yankeee Spirit is to repair equipment rather than scrap it. I did this for 29 years before the stuff got so inexpensive (and crummy) that I couldn't afford to make a business of it. There comes a time to give up. I've followed the thread of this file. It is evident that HP deals with this horrible product (v40) on a case-by-case basis. Quit trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear--it ain't worth the effort to fix it since it is obvious that future reliability?? is a serious issue. Refer your complaints directly to Carly Fiorino, CEO of HP. Change comes, unfortunately, not from the production line, but from the top. Make it so.
i had the same problem with my printer it made noises and and then i called hp and they sent me a new one then after the warrenty expired it happened again u cant fix it if u call hp after the warrenty expires they wont care cuz u bought it and agreed to the warranty of 1 year just trash it and dont buy hp ever again that should decrease their sales and get back at them for selling u a junk printer
I repaired the broken gear. and bypassed the alignment procedures, by pressing and holding menu and setup simulataniously while powering up. Now machine things that all is good, and shows date and time great. The fact is that it will not copy or print is there little green light flashes but nothing happends, is there a way to reset memory? or a code to re-start main function? HELP
just got of the phone with HP service rep. she was all concerned with my problem until she asked for the serial number and I told her I trashed it. Yes, it broke, me throw away, not complicated. She seemed annoyed that I would actually throw away my broken printer. Said she needed to go speak to her manager and would call me back.
let you know when I hear something
Re: v40 errors & other HP duds by evan (7/12/04 2:57 PM)
On 6/17 & 6/18, Nat Miller and Moe posted excellent responses reminding everyone that "low cost" products come at a "price"--the low cost that appeals at the time of purchase should be weighed against the reality that it typically reflects diminished quality of construction and possibly a shorter life cycle. After all, as the old saying goes, "You get what you pay for..."
Or do you--when HP is involved? Although I am not a v40 user/owner, I can't help but add a small commentary that--in the case of HP--it does not appear that product quality and support improve, even when significantly larger volumes of money are spent!
Historically, I've been a strong advocate of HP printer products. I'm now a seriously disgruntled and frustrated equipment purchaser in a small company that acquired a $2000 dud--the HP Color LaserJet 4600dn.
This model was brand new in 2002 and has already been discontinued by HP. Naturally, when we bought it new that year, there were no user reviews to examine and influence our purchase. We made our selection based on the solid list of desired features, the reasonable price for the type of product and specs being sought, and the long-standing reputation of HP.
We acquired a unit that provided good B&W production and fair to reasonable color ouput for about one year, although it never came close to the quality of color output that is seen when you print the marvelous demo page. Thereafter, we began experiencing one headache after another. Lo and behold! Now, upon reviewing input from many users at http://forums1.itrc.hp.com, I find the same pattern of "patterns of malfunction" that you v40 users speak of. In short, although the specific nature of our malfunctions differ from yours, many 4600 product line users report over and over again specific problems that are documented from one user to the next: toner cartridges (especially magenta) that leak excessively causing all sorts of problems; colored mottling entirely covering every page, and more.
Problem 1 = my company has a bad unit. Problem 2 = our bad unit isn't an anomaly--this model and its cartridges have serious flaws. Problem 3 = HP is making no effort to proactively document and provide access to troubleshooting information and assistance for known problems. There is little or no specific information about these issues in their mainline knowledge base--the resource most easily found and accessed for troubleshooting, especially by non-technical users. Problem 4 = When you dig deep enough to get at the truth of the poor performance history of this model, the persistent first line of troubleshooting offered is this: replace one or more toner cartridges. In two years time, these cartridges have gone from $110-$125 each to a current price of over $200 per pop. Imagine having 4 cartridges (black, magenta, cyan, and yellow)--of which 3 may still be 80% full and the 4th is 35% full and the "solution" is to replace the cartridges! That "first line of attack" troubleshooting endeavor costs almost half the original price of the printer! And, then, as often as not, it does not fix the problem!
Admittedly, some users post that this works and their problem(s) disappear. However, I've carefully scoured over 75 pages at one forum alone to find every 4600 product-line-related post and find that at least one-third of the users' problems remain unresolved, even when they go on to change transfer belts, fusers, and other expensive parts--to no avail. There are high-end users who have switched out other parts and elements and even gone so far as to rewire electrical outlets (per HP tech support), only to find within a matter of weeks or less that they once again have a useless unit.
Pardon that digression to rant. My point is two-fold. First, to "You get what you pay for..." be sure to add the ancient Roman adage, "Caveat Emptor!"--"Let the buyer beware!" As the story of the 4600 line shows, spending more doesn't mean you will get more. A dud is a dud is a dud--at $100, at $500, at $2000. The challenge for we buyers and users now is to determine how to become an informed buyer--before the purchase is made. Sadly, as I'm looking for another $2000 non-HP replacement, it isn't easy to readily locate timely input from real users and technicians.
My second point is this. I recognize that not every printer in the v40 line (or the higher end 4600 Color LaserJet line) breaks magically just after the warranty ends. Not every encounter with HP support staff ends with frustration. I appreciate those individuals who strive in a tough environment to provide good service to unhappy, frustrated users with botched project deadlines. However, I believe something has changed at HP that is about more than just selling printers in the low-end market. Did the change occur with the marriage with "Compaq"? Or, because of cheap foreign competition? I'm not able to identify the cause, but the symptoms (diminished product quality, declining service, etc.), clearly spell out the disease itself: Disposable Customer Syndrome.
HP--and many other companies--seem to now operate based on a line of reasoning that appears to actually work! For every disgruntled customer that won't make another purchase, there are three new customers in a hurry, looking for something affordable, anxious to dive into a new project, who aren't going to do their homework. So, just keep cycling through those disposable customers and their disposable products...
It's rare we get such an intelligent, well written post on this forum. You make a lot of valid points. The 4600 is a totally new engine. Canon's first foray into the single pass color laser. Just like a new car, you never buy the first year's model. If you look at the latest color laser offering, the HP2550, it's selling for $499. That's only $100 more than the $399 HP1300 mono laser. This just goes to show that they aren't interested in selling printers at all. They are more interested in selling the consumables that go into them. Little known fact is that the original toners are starter toners. They come with a minimal fill. Then there are the nasty little chips. Those in combination with the HP "Green Earth" campaign are solely meant to make remanufacturing the cartridges harder and more expensive. They probably spend just as much time designing the cartridges so they can't be remanufactured as they do on the quality of printing. Then, just as the remanufacturing industry figures out how to make a quality cartridge, they come out with a new model. Different cartridge design, more sophisticated chip technology, different toner formulation. The HP4/4plus/5(EX engine) was about the last decent printer they made. Now, it's all about profit. It's not like you have much choice. The other manufacturers are doing the same thing. If you go over to one of them, you're looking at even higher priced consumables that are difficult to find, and very expensive service when they break down. One person can't do much on their own. You'll get a form letter back from them thanking you for your input. If you holler and scream enough, you might get a replacement printer. The last legal action against them (5L/6L multi-feed problems) was resolved by sending customers a cheap band-aid fix that they stuck in the printer with a cardboard tool. Other option was a $25 coupon towards the purchase of another HP printer. The printer segment is HP's most profitable business and they want to keep it that way. Most people are used to being screwed. They just toss the cheap printer and go buy another cheap printer to replace it. There isn't any quality in this world anymore. It's all cheap, disposable product. There used to be shops that fixed toasters, mixers, and other small appliances. They don't exist anymore. One of these days the way things are going, we'll be joining them.
Excellent posts. It seems to be a systemic problem for the country. I am in my mid-30's, but I can already wax nostolgic about quality American products, about buying things that last. Clerks who knew what their job was, and could actually help you.
I think what is going on is a sea change in the way business is done in America. It is not about making the customer happy; it is about making Wall Street happy. I haven't the time, but I am sure someone could research the past several years of perhaps the Harvard Business Review and see how management has adopted a new strategy to turn a profit from a shorter life cycle for their products. Customer be damned.
I don't know what is going on, all I know is that it sucks for us. The way business is done now has almost nothing to do with satisfying the customer - have you asked for help at a Home Depot, Wal-Mart or Office Depot lately? Do these people even know where they work?
Unless you are a major shareholder or are upper management, you are the product. You are bought and sold. It is a different business model now, designed to maximize profit, and milk every last cent from you as quickly and as often as possible.
What can we do? Class action lawsuit? They will just hire Hill & Knowlton (www.hillandknowlton.com) to put out the word that frivolous lawsuits are clogging the courts, setting rapists free.
Research? Who has time to research? And like was said earlier, the life cycle is too short for good info to be found.
Complain? Yes. Complain. Like this forum. Let them know how you feel. Speak up. Get on the Net. Write your newspaper. Write the company. Call customer service. Talk to that East Indian or prisoner on the other end of the line, and let them know how you feel about the company that they work for because they can't find a better job. Bitch and moan. Spread the word.
Jason, on your comment about outsourcing. You have to be careful who you are talking to on the phone nowadays. I remember one airline (now defunct) had their reservation center in a prison. So here you are giving a prisoner all the details of where you live, when and how long you are going to be gone. The LA times recently did a story on a city in India that did most of the tech support for American companies. Everyone was newly wealthy and driving Beemers. No thought as to what would happen if they suddenly decided it was more cost effective to outsource to Singapore. That's what it's all about nowadays, profit.
took apart my v40 and found the gear that is broken figured out that if we just would have cleaned it once in a while the printer would have been fine but the glob of ink stoped the gear from moving and broke it the gear looked pretty delicate and i wasnt surprised that it broke
I E Mailed HP and explained that the drive gears for the carriage were broken. I also explained the error message "Carriage Jam ETC." and referred him to this web site for more info.
Sure enough he responded with the std. correction for the clearing of the "Carriage Jam" found on the HP web site so he obviously did not bother reading what I sent.
When I replied to his E MAil chewing him out for not reading what I said he apologized and referred me to the nearest repair center. He also basically said don't bother him anymore as he can't help solve and HP warranty issues. So bottom line is don't waist your time E Mailing HP. Spread the word about HP lack of support and write letters to the president. It is all about profit these days and you don't make money doing warranty.
PS: I was at Sams Club and I see HP has a new fax/copy/printer model 4215X. Guess what it is basically the old V-40 piece of crap but it now has a flip up door on the right side so you can watch the ink colums build up below the carriage and perhaps clean them out so the gears don't get coated with ink jam and break. This is progress, yuk, yuk. The door is not very big but if you are careful you might be able to clean it if HP bothers to tell you that it need to be done.
After 1 year and about THREE days, I am experiencing the same "carriage jam" error. I, too, spent an hour on the phone with support. They also took my credit card number and lead me to believe that they would send a replacement, but then gave me the run-around about the proof of purchase and the warranty. So in the end I ended up with (1) a lot of frustration (2) giving out my credit card on the phone and (3) no printer.
It happened about the same time my IBM NetVista decided to kick the bucket, so I thought that maybe a power surge knocked the two out. But after reading this very informative post - I think it was just a bad (and expensive) coincidence.
erin, to fix your v40 you must take it apart and find the service station(black box located to the right) take it out and disasemble the gears on the left side of it there will be a gear under the part that makes contact with the inside gear that is what is wrong with your printer that gear is broken and to get a new one you have to contact moe the support guy for this site he has a few of these gears when you replace the gear you have to clean the glob of ink that is inside of the service station
I have the same problem with my v.40. After reading this string of messages, I am convinced not to replace the v40 with any HP printer. I am not going to bother writing HP about my decision and since I am CTO of my company I plan on switching my servers, PCs and all HP equipment. Although this v40 was for my home office, this decision is going to influence what I take back to work. I don't need a class action law suit to make an impact in the market place. If a company can't make good on the little $100s things why should I expect them to make good on the $100Ks.
Does anyone know about the service record for the HP 4110. It looks like the V40 but has a flip up window on the right side so you can watch the ink columns build and clean them before they gum up the machine. A National computer store was offering them with a $70 rebate so you buy the HP4110 for $79.97. They also offer a $45 warranty ($30 after rebate) for 2 years. So printer and 2 yr.warranty costs $109.97. If the printer dies before 2 years they say they will replace it with a new one. They say they you will not give you a reconditioned placement. Does this sound like a good/bad deal?????
I am glad I found this website. We too purchased this V40 for our Fire Department and Police Department office. What a joke! I have the same exact problems that everyone else has. I have not tried taking it apart yet, not sure if I should even bother. Is is worth the trouble to email HP? I know that HP has an office here in Idaho. I have my original invoice and the cancelled check that paid for it. It is of course a month over the warranty period. I really appreciate all of the input here.
the gears that i bought from moe for the v 40 were the wrong ones and did not fit in the service station so dont buy them
I told him we would refund the money. My fault as I used the p/ns that someone posted above without researching them. I've been unable to run down the real p/ns of the gears.
I want to thank everyone for posting your experiences with the v40. I feel fortunate that mine lasted for 16 months (pretty light usage) but now I am having all the same problems written about here. Thanks for saving me the time to try and get this thing fixed...No more HP for this guy!
Just an update....all the problems listed, Ive had and more....much more...the long and short was I followed the advice in the thread and sent the ceo of HP an email. Within 24 hours I had had 2 replies, and within 72 hours a phone call from a Customer service manager. Basically, even though the printer was out of warranty, they said that they would replace it for shipping costs with a 5110. Asked if I could rather have a 5510 as a replacement as 5110 is no longer made etc. No arguments at all....The new printer arrived today (1 day shipping and $40 later). Thats not bad as an attempt to rectify a bad situation. I am happy with the printer...works like a dream. Only sorry that one has to go to such lenths to get anything resembling decent service from a company. Hope all works out for you.
I've had a little better luck with my v40, it has lasted me 2 yrs with alot of use. I am interested in any action to make hp responsible for their products.
Alright guys.... here's my story. My V40 broke from the ink buildup in the carriage tray, and the small gear tab broke, as described in great detail. I took mine apart down the the chassis to find this out. Many thanks to the guys who pioneered this effort.. I'd have broken more stuff if not for their help. I tried to repair it myself, but it was too weak. I also ordered new gears, but the wrong ones were delivered and the right ones (as it turns out) were unavailable anywhere from what I gathered.
I called HP cust service in India. Useless. I called/emailed HP here (idaho) and they were quick to offer a new HP printer at a cost, which I did not want to accept. This 'back and forth' discussing went on for a few weeks, but finally they offered me a new HP 7110 at no charge. My unit was 13 months old (1 mo. out of warranty). It took a long time, but it appears that they are gonna take my old unit back, and send me a new one. Overall, I am pleased with the solution, although it took a month.
Again, thanks to the people on this thread and to HP for helping me out.
For those interested, my only argument to HP was the following: My HP V40 is broken, and it is not an anomoly, but rather a design flaw that is supported by many websites and reviews of the product unfortunately. HP can offer me a replacement printer, or I can purchase another brand, but I cannot in good conscience purchase any more HP products without a fair resolution.
I just repaired this problem (broken tab on small gear) on an OfficeJet 5110. I extracted the gear and first used an X-Acto knife to cut off the remaining portion of the tab, so it was flush with the face of the gear. I then drilled a small hole through the gear in the center of the rectangle where the tab used to be. I took a thin metal nail, pushed it into the hole, and cut off the head with a Dremel tool so it stuck out just a few mm above the face of the gear. I then used the X-Acto to make a replacement tab from a piece of scrap plastic, and drilled a hole in it to accept the nail. I put some Loc-Tite on the nail and slid the new tab down onto it and clamped it overnight. The next day I put everything back together and it seems to be working. The tab on the large gear was also starting to crack...I left it alone for now, but I may have to go back in if it breaks. Just wanted to let people know that it is possible to fix these things. It took me about 2-3 hours total to make this repair. By the way, I also took the whole cleaning station apart and ran water through all the components until the ink was totally flushed out. If you leave all the ink slime in there, it will probably just jam up and break again.
andrew l's idea worked on my v40 and it is now working fine if you need to fix your printer just follow his directions and the repair should be made with ease
Same issue as most of you. I purchased 3 V40’s for my company a little over a year ago and 2 of them have suddenly started making terrible noises and not printing. After following HP's directions for cleaning and lubing the issue persisted. Although I haven’t seen the broken gear the symptoms are consistent with what the majority of posters are claiming.
the broken gears are in the service station which is blocked by the printing carriage. the service station is the black box to the right. once you take it apart the gear that is broken needs to be repaired with a needle or a nail instaid of that broken tab on it. and oh ya clean the ink glob too or it will just break the bigger gear
My v40 is displaying the "incorrect black cartridge installed" error that two others have posted. Was anyone able to fix it as I have tried everything.
WOW!!! My v40 is doing the same things as mentioned thru out this thread and I am fit to be tied...No sense wasting my time in repairing this POS. Noticed that a couple of folks got replacement printers after they discussed this issue with HP....might try that myself...guess I could try to return it to the store I purchased it and show them this whole thread. Perhaps if the large store retails contacted HP about these type issues, HP may perk up their ears to the consumer compliant...don't know...will try...
I had previously posted about the gears in the service station, based on recent information I received the V40 was made with two different print engines, the older engine was mechanically the same as the DeskJet 9XX series. I have one customer with this model, every 20K pages it develops problems and needs to be disassembled and cleaned, but it does not break gears.
I am working on identifying the part number for the newer print engine, unfortunately I haven't personally disassembled the new style, a friend of mine has one at his shop, so I'm planning to stop by and take a look at it. Based on what he told me on the phone the print engine in it seems to be similar to the DeskJet 5550.
Just an update. Following the advice of some on this forum, I emailed HP about a week ago and have received two phone calls from HP: one from the executive offices, and one from tech support. I was told that they would be sending me out the HP 5110 as a replacement for my V40. I am a little nervous just because of some of the problems I see posted here, but if it lasts a year or so like the V40, guess I can live with that. Thanks for the postings here and the helpful information.
Guess what People ! I can Fix this problem. I have the gears. I have the tools. I have the experiance. $90.00 shipping will Wake you from this nightmare. Ship the unit to: Atlantic Electronics 9350 B US HWY 1 North Sebastian Florida 32958 You will be contacted by phone upon completion of repair, so please include your phone # and shipping address. I had stumbled accross the site this morning I hope my services can help some of the folks who cant afford to buy a new unit. I totally support any class action suit against Hewlette Packard or better yet get HP to pay me for service to your unit. They have enough money ! HP should clean up there own mess. But they wont. Thanks Steve D.
I have a v-40 officejet hp, I havent read all of your posting yet but from what i hear this machine is a junk. luckly i have made over 35,000, copies from this v-40. guess its my turn , I changed the v-40 to another PC, and so far the computer is not talfing to the v-40.
In process upgradeing to windows 2000, maybe this will help. The v-40 was working all the way on my Compaq 7360 from USB cable to the all in one.
I have a v-40 officejet hp, I havent read all of your posting yet but from what i hear this machine is a junk. luckly i have made over 35,000, copies from this v-40. guess its my turn , I changed the v-40 to another PC, and so far the computer is not talfing to the v-40.
In process upgradeing to windows 2000, maybe this will help. The v-40 was working all the way on my Compaq 7360 from USB cable to the all in one.
Contacted HP about the probs with the v40 and being out of warranty by 6 months. Overall, they were very nice/pleasant but only able to give lip service and offered a 15% discount off of another printer on the HP shopping site. No real help from these guys. Now, can anyone provide me a step by step guide to repairing the broken gear. I need info on removal of the casing as well. Would really appreciate any input/instructions/links to the procedure. Might as well do it myself...Thanx...glad to have found this forum...later...
I have been given this V40, because they couldn't make it work. It has the same symptoms as the rest of yours, lol, what a coincidence.
I am Having Problems getting to this elusive gear, without breaking the plastic case. But i would like to say that in a completly different printer that i was given, the problem was ALSO a BROKEN GEAR. I was able to take the gear out of this other printer with ease, and took it into my mini-tool workshop, where i cut a notch down into the gear. Cut a new tooth out of this block of some sort of plastic, and then i put some compound glue un the notch, and on the tooth, and put the fixed gear back in the printer, and IT WORKED!!!
My plan is to get to this broken gear in this V40, and do the same easy steps. If it works, i will put up another post and offer to fix anyone elses gears in return for such a helpful site :)
Several people have posted fixes for the broken gear problem. Here is an update on the fix (small gear only) that I posted on 5/25/04.
Sadly, the original repair only worked for a few days. Apparently, the printer motor puts a huge load on the gear whenever it tries to find its position (the reason that it broke in the first place) and the solder just didn't hold.
To fix that, I have changed it to a one piece design with a soldered reinforcement. Here is a picture of it while being made.
And I thought I was the only one to have this problem. I would like to see a class action happen. I am going to give a shot at contacting HP, aka "Lazy H" and see what happens.
Me thinks that HP is just sitting back and laugh as we all go out and buy the new ink so that we can start the trouble shooting. I did just that I went out and bought ink today and then when that didn't work I tore the stupid thing apart. I then started to look for a site to tell me how to fix it. Now after spending the 2hrs to read all the post hear I think that I like many of the others here will just part ways with this "Paper weight" and find something better. I thank all of you who have taken the time to read and update this issue. I just wish that I had looked it up last nite and saved my self the time I lost in all the mess of this. I am very grateful that I now know what the problem is and I can be done with it.
This has been one of the most useful links I have ever come across on. Our v40 just started doing the same thing after one year. My wife is starting to write a letter now. Excellent, excellent info.
---->I hope the folks from HP are reading this. Wake up. We had $3,000 worth of repairs on our GM vehicle. I am NEVER buying another GM product. Think we are ever gonna buy an HP product?????
I have a clients 5110 with the exact same problem. Just a word of advice that has helped prevent the problem on other printer models. If you notice the indexed ribbon that runs through the inkcartridge mechanism, it can become dirty and the IR sensor cannot tell where it is on the ribbon. Instead of hashmarks, it may just see one solid mark, which will cause it to not know it's position on the ribbon. This may cause it to slam into one side or the other of the printer. If you wipe that ribbon off, 9 time out of 10 you will get quite a bit of residue off of it. Keeping this ribbon clean on your future printers may reduce the risk of broken gears on ink parking mechanisms. I'm nto sure what other manufacturers use to guid the print cartridges, but HP has used this method for many years.
On the 5110 there is a similiar hased device that is about a 3 inch disk on the left side of the printer. You can see it when you open the ink door. This disc is alomost always covered in a white dust (presumably from the paper dust) on it's perimeter. Keeping this clean probably won't prevent damage, but it should help on the alignment of the paper as it feeds.
I read all these rants and have seen enough of these broken gear problems caused by the dirty ribbon, that I think HP should probably either use stainless steel gears or devise some way of keeping the ribbon clean.
I'm so glad I came across this thread! I have a v40 that I inherited from the ex. It is about a year and a half old and the automatic document feeder doesn't feed--it makes a terrible machine gun sound and a lot of beeping. So I can use it to print and receive faxes, but no scannign or copying. I had just called a repair place and was planning to take it in tomorrow, but it sounds like it's not long for the world anyway--I think I'll just wait a few months and then buy a different printer. And this time I'll do my homework!
I am having the same problems and have not been able to repair. I too began hearing some grinding noises as soon as I got the printer home. Not familiar with the printer and its normal set of noises, I didn't give it much thought until now-- after a year and a half-- I get total failure after a "carriage" error message. Of course it happened in the middle of a very important print job for my work, and I have spent the last several hours trying to troubleshoot through the problem. Thank goodness I came upon this thread. It is tempting to take some sticky notes into various stores and put notes on HP printers describing the issue. I am disappointed to hear that HP's reaction has been mixed-- sometimes helpful, often not.
Best wishes to all of you. I'm hoping I won't get fired for having a big stall in this project.
I have an OJ 5110. It is a little over a year old and has the exact same symptoms described here. This thread saved me a lot of time because I was half way into taking the thing apart. Shame on HP.
This is a common business practice (dad says the same thing happened to black and decker). Turning a company with a good reputation for quality into a low-quality producer while keeping the prices at the same level is extremely profitable.
Time to shop for a printer from a company that has some better business practices.
Hate to burst your bubble Tim, but you'll find the same situation with whatever MFC you buy. There just isn't any quality any more. There's another thread on Brother MFCs that's as long as this one. Xerox, Lexmark, take your pick. All basically 13 month wonders. If it breaks during the warranty period, then you lose your printer, fax, scanner and copier for 4-6 weeks, maybe longer. It's a lose-lose proposition. Don't put the blame on HP, all the companies are equally guilty of shoddy products at the expense of the consumer.
I disagree with the 4-6 weeks for replacement of printers in warranty, it might happen occasionally, but it's usually about a week.
I work for a HP ASP and we regularly handle exchanges for the local school system, HP was backlogged on the 5550 for a while and it was taking 3 weeks for an exchange, lately they ship the replacement printer the same day I order it and it arrives in about 5 business days, (printers coming from west coast and I'm on the east).
I regret buying this machine for my parents. The warranty (OF COURSE) expired just a couple months before it started in with the carriage jam error messages. My parents have been out of a printer, copier, and fax for a few weeks now, as we tried to find someone who could repair it. Every place we tried said "no" as soon as they found out what it was. So we now have a machine that LOOKS brand new, it little over a year old, and completely useless. Even though we have almost $200 worth of spare ink, I'm just not feeling inclined to buy HP again. I've been a faithful customer for years (buying HP for my parents, my boyfriend, the office, and myself). But this is ridiculous! What a waste!
Same problem. It's incredible! I've tried everything the HP website suggested and get the same error message. I did a google search and wound up here. I thought I had surely broken my printer, it turns out they are just defective machines. Shame on HP.
And to dave, suggesting we "fix it, its just a gear" I have no clue how to do that!
I complained to HP about the problem and got this response in email:
----------------------------------------------- [...] I'd like to acknowledge that the issue you are experiencing with the HP Officejet 5110 All-in-one is not an common issue with these units.
Although this service is provided as a means of technical support for our customers, we appreciate and value your feedback on our company's products and services.
For information about getting this unit replaced, I request you call our HP Total Care phone support. One of our technician will assist you in this regard. [...]
I have the same issue with my officejet 5110xi, stuck on the right, will not print, gob of ink in the tray, broken gear... Thanks for the awesome info, I'm going to try the CEO route and get a replacement - the repair job sounds difficult and unreliable.
Been following this post and taking the ol' v40 apart. Finally got the cover off and located the black box area with the gears...just don't know how to get to the gears now and what other parts to remove to access those litte boggers. How about some technical info from the printer repair gods in this forum. Any diagrams or how to with details would be nice. Thanx....
to get to the gears you need to take the printing carriage off. to do this you need to unscrew the two screws that are on the metal bar. next there are two screws that are connecting it to the back panel. locate them and take them off. now you need to take the plastic side wall off(tricky). to do that you need to push out the tabs. youll figure it out. now unscrew the final screw holding your carriage on and take it off. there is now a screw covering a gear. uscrew it and take the plastic piece back and put with your pile of screws. then push the service station out. there is a tab holding it in. now just unscrew the cover on the gears. watch out cuz there are springs pushing the gears back. dont wana lose them. now you need to find the broken gear. il help you do that and fix it. once you get this done.
We called HP, and after more than a few calls, on our V40 a week or so ago and explained the issue.
They looked up our SN and confirmed it was out of warranty but did issue a replacement unit (the 5510).
We are pretty happy that they did replace the V40 unit even though three months over the year initial warranty. Those in the same boat may want to consider this route.
good job. once you find and clean up your broken gear its time to fix it. its usually the smaller one thats broken and its the one that is closest to the serv. to fix it you will need to cut out where the tab was and drill a hole in the place that the tab was located. drill it all the way through. then cut a new tab from a piece of scrap plastic and drill a hole through that too. use a 1/16 drill bit and slide a needle thats cut to the right size through the new tab and the gear now glue the tab to the gear and put it back. then size it so that it fits under the big gear
Dave...Cleaned up the gears. The small one looks like it is missing a piece from the tab but I don't know what or how much was missing from it as I have no clue on the size of the tab. The large gear above it appears to make contact with the tab on the small gear but the small gear tab looks slightly chiped. Should the tab and needle go thru the diameter of the small gear or parallel with the gear ridges?
Dave..thanx for the instructions so far. I was able to remove the gears but haven't attempted your modification. I decided to drill a small hole in the small gear and place a modified cotter pin in it to see what the results would be. No Joy...cotter pin bent from the pressure of the larger pin. Will keep working on this. By the way, I have been taking pics of each step of the repair process so at some point, I will get them up with a link so others can have a better idea of what is involved...thanx for everyone's input on this printer/project...
Here is a link to pics I took while taking the v40 apart to get to the gears. No pictures of the gear repair yet as I haven't completed that phase...hope this helps get some of you started on fixing the gears...good luck...to be continued
cogtx, nice job on those pics it appears to be a large chip taken out of your small gear which will make it harder to fix. is there anything broken on the larger gear
Dave...large gear looks intact without any signs of cracks. Small gear is a real challenge. Don't know if the needle, glue and added plastic piece will hold on this. Any other suggestions? Appreciate your kind assistance...thanx
Dave...thought I'd try another approach to fixin' that small gear. I cut/modified a small hose clamp from auto store and attached it to the small gear. See the photos for how to...haven't tried this mod out yet...will do it tomorrow and leave feedback here...anyone have other ideas for this type of gear repair. How about, anyone know where to purchase these original gears...just in cause the mods don't work...thanx all
Dave and Cogtx, mighty fine job at detailing a fix. I too have ink to spare and have already sworn off of HP/Compaq computers long ago. will now add printers of the all in one variety. I am a college instructor in computers and will be sure to spread the word. Don't let down your guard, vote with your feet. Eventually it will get them in the end. Also check your mutual fund portfolios and ask that they divest any shares in HP while you are at it. Cudos to you two, Boos to HP.
Thanx Dave...you're right. Step 15 can be omitted but I wanted to see what was in the black box. I have another question for you..Does it matter what position the gears are in after the fix is made? and where should that green and black sliding device in the black box be once the fix is made? Just curious...if you think the position matters...
No the position does not matter you will hear a horrible clicking noise when you start it up but that is good. if your gear is strong enough the motor will spin the position of the gears all the way back and all the way to the front and it will be all set in the right place.
No Joy on the hose clamp mod for that small gear. Appears that the clamp tabs are not large enough to block the large gear tab completely. Will try the ol' needle/plastic glue tab mod by Dave...will keep you updated...
Still trying to repair the gear. Next, I found a cylinder like head nail from a hardware store, drilled hole in gear, cut nail to size of gear, inserted, and glue it. See photos for visual. Will try it in the printer tomorrow after epoxy dries. Keepin' fingers crossed...
I called HP's 24 hour support line 800-474-6836 and they are well aware of the issue and even though it is not to be found on their website there is an AUTOMATIC replacement for this printer issue.
Kevin...tell me more. What's the process for gettin' one of those AUTOMATIC replacements? I'm running out of ideas on how to fix this printer myself and have had no luck getting HP support. Keep us posted on the details...thanx
Cogtx: Nice job on the photos. It's a great contribution to this forum by posting them. Before you give up, I suggest you try the gear fix that I posted on 5/25 and 8/8. As reported on 8/8 , the original fix did'nt last long. The modified fix is much stronger and has been working fine. As long as the gear is mostly intact and you have a Dremel tool and a soldering iron, you can make it work. You should be very used to the assembly / disassmbly routine by now :). So might as well give this a try ?
David...OK, will attempt your fix this weekend. I noticed your small gear sleeve is broken in half and you cut the copper sleeve mod to match the remaining plastic gear sleeve. That would provide support for the copper sleeve mod and prevent it from moving when the larger gear tab makes contact. My small gear sleeve is intact. How would I keep the copper sleeve mod from moving? Glue? OR would I have to cut the plasic sleeve in half and then proceed with your mod as described? Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated...thanx
Cogtx: Yes, I cut a half circle off the nylon sleeve (of the small gear) for it to lock to the copper sleeve during rotation. Maybe you can think of a better way. But mind you, the torque is very high there, glue or epoxy is not going to hold. Just by the way of background: In my very first failed attempt to fix the gear, I screwed up the sleeve while trying to weld a metal pin to it. So it did not bother me cutting the damaged part of the sleeve off for this fix.
After I called I was told that the replacemnt unit would be sent via mail(5-7 days) with a return label for the old unit. A credit card number is required as collateral in case you don't return the old unit. My unit wasn't registered with them nor did I have warranty details. I received the email below this morning. My details are asterisked.
I hope this turns out positive. I voiced that this problem should also be posted on their website. It seems like they are "hiding" the issue when you have to call or find posting sites such as this one.
In an ongoing effort to ensure satisfaction with our service, we have attached a confirmation of your recent Hewlett-Packard Support Solution. Please retain this document for your records.
The warranty status listed below is contingent upon the accuracy of the model number, serial number and proof of purchase (if required). Please verify that all information is accurate. If any of the information is incorrect, or if you have questions regarding customer service on your HP product, please contact our HP Customer Care center using the appropriate telephone number listed in your product user manual.
***Important: Please do not post your changes or questions electronically as this mailbox is not currently set up to accept reply correspondence.***
You can check the current status of your order online at:
Great support is still available around the clock by logging in to http://www.hp.com/go/support. Award-winning HP Customer Care brings a world of support services right to your desktop. You'll find tips and tricks, troubleshooting help, drivers, community forums, e-mail technical support (only available on some products) and much more to help you quickly get the answers you need.
Sincerely,
HP Customer Care ...................................................................... .......
Hewlett-Packard Customer Service Order:
Customer Service Order Number: *****-** CSO Placement Date: 09/03/2004
Model Number: Q1680A Model Description: HP OFFICEJET 5110XI Serial Number: CN33IB****
You selected the following Hewlett-Packard Hardware Support Service for your product: HP Exchange
Warranty Status: Pending
Total charge (including tax, if applicable): $0.00 Payment Method: No Payment ...................................................................... .......
Kevin.. thanx for the info. Good job working with HP to get a replacement. When I contacted them, they would only offer me a 15% discount on another printer in their online shop. Sounds like you got ahold of the right people. Was your printer still under warranty or did they just make an exception? They continue to refuse to replace my printer although it is about 5 months out of warranty. Keep us updated on your efforts.
David...yep, guess I will cut that puppy to attempt your mod for the small gear. Kinda tired of messing with it right now but should get back a little more patience in a few days. Thanx again for your creative solutions...
I have used a different approach to the small gear repair. After drilling a hole in the gear with a .039" drill bit, I used a .044" nail from a Hiat wire fastener and cut it to fit(these are tough nails designed for pounding into plaster or oak), then force fitted it into the hole. This approach lasted 1 alignment cycle and after some grinding gave the Carriage jam error. Examination of the fix showed that the force on the pin elongated the hole and it became sloppy. I began to question the notion that the position of the service station didn't matter on assembly and that after some grinding, would sort itself out. My next approach was to take a #24 sewing Machine needle and using a drill and a dremel tool, I shaped the needle to .040" to fit a .036" hole, leaving some of the rectanglular shoulder to embed into the gear when I pressed it in using a soldering iron. The sewing needle has a grove up the side of it which will cause it to resist rotation as well when pressed in using heat.
I cleaned up the ink pad, the service station and its tray using a mixture of 20% methel hydrate mixed with water. This cleaned the pad back to white (I used two putty knives, one to pin the pad and the other to scrape it)and got rid of all of the dried ink on the bottom of the service station and its gears. (don't smoke when you do this, as a mater of personal health, use this as an opportunity to quit now ;)
On assembly, I also placed the service station towards the front of the printer in the park position. I did not get the grinding noise as it realigned. This may or may not be relavent.
The printer Passed alignment, printed a photo in B/W and then in Color. So far, so good. Once I use up the cartridges, off to the garbage for this last HP item I will ever purchase or recommend for purchase.
I'll let you know how it is holding up in a month or so. This repair methadology isn't for the faint of heart, and it doesn't leave much room for error because the heat causes a bulge in the interior of the gear which has to be drilled or filed out. If you don't get it right on try one, the gear may be toast (literaly).
The large gear also showed a crack as noted by others so I back braced it with a press-fit .044" Hiat nail into a .039" hole drilled into the gear just in case. As a person who has serviced electromechanical devices back to the 70's, I can only comment that the engineer who designed this transport is brilliant from an Obsolescence Sales perspective. But to be fair to him or her, The problem may also be that HP is selling shoddy,leaky cartridges, also a brilliant ploy.
James...good job and thanx for the detail of your fix. I am impressed with the creativity of the people in this forum and their ability to help us remedy this problem printer. I'm still working on the small gear repair but will keep your modifications in mind...thanx again...
Kevin...lucky for you, your printer is still under warranty and HP SHOULD replace your printer. Bad for the rest of us whose printers died right after the one year warranty was up...
Just to re-emphasize what James said, be very careful if you try to use heat to “weld” a pin or something into the nylon gear. I used a lighter to heat a needle into it and ended up setting the gear on fire. The material of the gear can sustain a flame once it reaches a certain temperature. Be sure to use a soldering iron (better with temperature control) to do this, and use only minimum amount of heat possible.
Unlike previous models, this printer uses a single motor to drive both the paper feed and the service station (cheap). Every time the ink cartridge goes to rest in (or maybe also goes out of ?) the station the printer has to re-calibrate its position (previous models use a separate motor just for the service station, so no re-calibration). I believe the printer re-calibrates by ‘brute” force, driving the service “pod” to the front of the station until it hit the stop (therefore the grinding sound). When the motor cannot turn anymore, the printer confirms it has reached the stop; only then the motor is turned off. The gears break because of this constant abuse by the full torque of the motor. Clever, but bad ….bad…bad.
Re: Re: v40 errors by Anonymous (1/17/05 12:23 PM)
I have the same problem. Always getting carriage jam messages. I am usually able to fix it, but today, I have wasted over 4 hours at work trying to make it run. HP officejet v40xi is a piece of crap. HP should do something to replace it.
I had the same problem as everyone else. I took the advice of a few people that posted in the forum and contacted HP through their website->Contact->Corporate Executives and received a very prompt response. They are going to replace the printer with a 5110 officejet (newer version). They are shipping it overnight. It was not difficult to do. A senior QA guy called me back and in less than 10 minutes had it worked out. They were very friendly and helpful. So, despite the problem I think they handled it professionally and I'm happy with the outcome.
Re: v40 errors (also Office Jet 5110) by Will H (2/1/05 5:32 PM)
I'm glad I found this site... I purchased an Office Jet 5110 back around Nov./Dec. '03 and I started getting those "clear carriage jam" errors around April/May of '04, so it was still under warranty. HP sent me a replacement with no problem... BUT, last week January '05 (about 8 months after getting the replacement, but now 1-2 months past the original warranty) the REPLACEMENT started giving me the SAME error messages.
ANYWAYS... I called HP support last week and they told me I could BUY another replacement for about $100 - $150 bucks... so I said I'd call back... I started looking online and found this site... well... I just called Tech support and told them about my problem and how my replacement had the same issue and how I came across a website where MANY other people have had the same issue... used the words "this is ridiculous" and was upset and yadda yadda yadda blah blah the tech told me to hold on and came back and said they could ship me out another replacement (no charge). Hmm, this is the same replacement that last week was going to cost me over 100 bucks! So, I'll be getting my replacement in 5-7 business days without having to email the CEO. As someone else said, it's the same crappy model, but atleast it'll hopefully last me another year and it's better than buying a new one right now.
As an additional note, I told them my print cartridges were stuck in the printer, which they are because of this carriage jam error, so they are also sending me replacements for those as well.
Moral of the story... I believe HP is aware of this problem, so if you make a fuss about it, they'll replace it even after the warranty.
ps-- I work in support at a company where HP/Compaq is our vendor... and, even though I believe we buy the cheapest models... Compaq hardware is horrible... but, its good job security for me! We just got the 4600dn printers, so far so good (keeping fingers crossed).
I'm using winxp. xp see's the printer, but I can't load the software for scanning and such.. Tried downloading update from hp, does not work? Ughhhh........help
Re: v40 errors by www.janieguarnie (2/9/05 10:07 PM)
HEWLETT PACKARD PRODUCED A PIECE OF JUNK WHEN THEY MADE THE v40 PRINTER. THE FAX LINE STOPPED WORKING SHORTLY AFTER I BOUGHT IT. I TOOK THE PRINTER BACK TO CIRCUT CITY AND THEY CHARGED ME $78.00 TO SEND IT BACK TO HEWLETT PACKARD. HEWLETT PACKARD SENT IT BACK TO CIRCUIT CITY SAYING THEY DON'T SERVICE THIS PRODUCT ANYMORE. ANYONE WANTING TO COMPETE WITH HEWLETT PACKARD IN PRODUCT AND SERVICE! GO FOR IT! THE MARKET IS WIDE OPEN. CONSUMERS ARE FED UP WITH HEWLETT PACKARD PRODUCT AND SERVICE. GO FIGURE. I HAVE A 6 MONTH SUPPLY OF COLOR INK AND NOW THE PRINTER WILL NOT PRINT IN COLOR. GO FIGURE.
How did u rip ur officejet printer off. I read the docs and maybe I have the same GEAR problem.I cant find aby screw to rip it apart. do u have a ocument. if yes please sent it
Could I get a part for my r40 officejet. I have the same problem- reading paper jam when there is no paper jam. Funny thing is, the paper feeds great when i print through my computor, It won't print when I want to run a photo copy through it. That is when it reads "paper jam".
Sadly what we all need to understand is that most of these companies are selling us ink......not printers. Yes, most of the printers on the market are pretty paper weights, poorly designed from our point of view but not from theirs!!! Yes the cartridges leak quite a bit. They all know how long your printer will last and finally, most printers are sold at cost or below the cost of manufacturing.
Do you want a decent printer??? Go to the store and find the cheapest ink, then buy that printer. That is the company thats not screwing you by giving away the printer and breaking your legs for the ink. Also check out printerdb.com and read the reviews before you buy or you will all be screwed again. As a matter of fact, its good to do your homework no matter what you buy. I'm throwing my hp officejet v40xi out into the garbage today as soon as I get up and about. Reading all these sob stories convinced me to not even try. Have a nice day everyone!!! And goodbye hp. I'll never see you again. sob sob, sniff sniff....
Sadly what we all need to understand is that most of these companies are selling us ink......not printers. Yes, most of the printers on the market are pretty paper weights, poorly designed from our point of view but not from theirs!!! Yes the cartridges leak quite a bit. They all know how long your printer will last and finally, most printers are sold at cost or below the cost of manufacturing.
Do you want a decent printer??? Go to the store and find the cheapest ink, then buy that printer. That is the company thats not screwing you by giving away the printer and breaking your legs for the ink. Also check out printerdb.com and read the reviews before you buy or you will all be screwed again. As a matter of fact, its good to do your homework no matter what you buy. I'm throwing my hp officejet v40xi out into the garbage today as soon as I get up and about. Reading all these sob stories convinced me to not even try. Have a nice day everyone!!! And goodbye hp. I'll never see you again. sob sob, sniff sniff....
Also, www.printpal.com sells ink for about half price and has two day delivery. For hp v40 that would be $12.95 for black and $16.95 for color. and the cartridges have more ink in them than in the stores. $4.95 for mailing costs. Have a nice day!!! (My garbage is being collected this morning. I can see him cycling his truck after he dumped my can. I wonder if it did any further damage to my hp officejet v40xi???? Probably not.
Cogtx, My V40 was out of warranty, but I got free replacement 5110. You should try and don't forget to mention Automatic replacement program. Good luck!
Hi Curt, Had the same problem w/ v40 (new) black ink cartridge giving "incorrect cartridge installed" .... HP Tech Support not much help. Went to Sam's Club today and purchased a two-pack of C6615DC (not C6615DN or C6615D) cartridges, which went right in. Don't know the difference between DC / DN / D but the DC works. Maybe a design problem fixed by HP ? Good Luck
Tom Latimer
Re: Re: Re: v40 errors by Anonymous (3/31/05 8:17 PM)
Hi. Like most everyone, I've had the same breakdown of my V40 shortly after the warranty expired. Can you please tell me exactly what steps you took to receive a replacement 5110? Thanks!
OMGosh...I have a hp 3820 sitting in my closet(taking up space)...anyway, when it failed we thought we would invest in a little more money and bought the v40 ($322)....what a huge mistake!!!!!!!!!!! Although mine made it 1 year and 3 months..(about 1 or 2 months longer than it's normal life span)...I think we were all RIPPED off and they knew it...We all deserve some type of compensation...let me know where to sign because I'd be all over that!!!! I feel used...don't you? If anyone knows what we can do please reply...I'll check back later after I run to Kinkos!!!
Our V40 has worked fine til just now. Reloaded the paper stack and the next thing I tried to print out sucked up about half the stack of paper and jammed it. I'm not even getting a complete error message and have absolutely NO idea how to get this mess unstuck. We just moved here and I don't even know where the manual for this piece of crap is now....help!!! Is there a paper release or something hiding under all this plastic???
You can add me to the list of customers with the "CARRIAGE JAM" problem for the HP Officejet V40 unit, which worked fine for 20 months, but now, after calling HP's tech support phone # I was told that my unit was "finished" and that I had to fork out another $121.00 + taxes in order to get a new one. What a bunch of crap... After searching Google, and found this website, I simply cannot believe that so many people have had the same exact problem as I have. This is a SCAM. We need to find a good LAWYER to start a class action lawsuit against HP so we can all get our money back. I am so pissed right now...
I've pretty much stayed out of this thread because many of the posts are bemoaning the will known fact that the Officejet V40 is inherently unreliable. This is only partly true. It's the latter version that has caused most of the grief. There were two earlier versions that were reasonably good machines. I suspect that their owners are basically happy with them. The dog version can be distinguished from the others by the diameter of the carriage rod. A 3/8" diameter rod means it’s probably a goner, but one with a 1/2" diameter rod deserves a second look. If you're having trouble with an early version, create a new thread with a subject that will distinguish you from the laminators.
3820 users are getting new printers from HP for free. Since the V40 uses the same flawed mechanism as the 3820, I think a case could be made for free replacement of them as well. People have been contacting tech support on HP's website, relating their stories and they seem to be sympathetinc and sending out free replacements with little hassle. Worth a try. Knowledge is power.
silk, I think you misunderstood. He's going to call HP about getting a free replacement for the V40. How would he even know your phone number? I suggest you do the same.
Not to worry anonymous and Moe - got it unjammed myself (I'm so proud!) and have progressed from a printer jam to a HP monitor on it's death bed - we gave it last rights after talking to New Delhi last night and bought another today. Joy. "Ain't" computers grand? Makes the paper jam pale in comparison - but thanks for the suggestions. silk
I remember paying $500 for a 17 inch monitor. Now I can get a 17" flat screen LCD for $200, which is the same size as a 19" monitor. Maybe we should follow the crowd and move everything to New Delhi? As long as I don't have to move there as well.
Since I seem to have discovered all the earth's wisdom in this place, I've got another question for ya'll. We got the new HP monitor yesterday, which has built in speakers, unlike the "old" HP monitor that committed suicide. And the sound is tinny, as one would expect, given that they're teeny tiny and in metal - or does that even matter any more?? My questionn: is it possible to rig the old speakers up some way. Our speakers plugged into both the monitor and the main cabinet and had wonderful sound quality and I don't see a place on this monitor to plug them in so it's probably hopeless, but just thought I'd ask. Perhaps I'm having a particularly "blonde" week or something....silk
You do know you didn't have to buy another HP monitor? We have a nice non HP 17" LCD monitor with good speakers and a built in TV tuner. You should be able to plug your speakers into the sound card output and leave the monitor speaker plug dangling.
I have been using my v40xi with no problems for a couple of years. Now every time I try and pring a page everything looks like it's fine and then it just stops printing half way down the page and says document failed to print. I have deleted, re-installed divers and updated drives and it does not fix the problem. It does the same no matter what program I print from. I'm running XP pro. Any ideas?
I bought a V40 in June 2002 which started to refuse black cartridges in August 2003 after I installeld a HP15 cartridge which I bought in the USA (as its cheaper over there). My HP V40 was bought in Germany. Therefore I suspected that the V40 does not take USA HP15 cartridge; bought a German black HP15 plugged it in and I still get the "wrong black cartridge" error message. Tried all the cleaning tips on this forum and the master reset routine (via # & 6 key) configuring the V40 for Germany or USA without any success. four e-mail exchanges with HP service did not help either. Thus this forum is my last resort before I junk the V40.
I have the officejet v60. Loved in the beginning and have only printed 1250 items. Can anyone get in on the class action suite? I would love to find the HP headquarters so i can shove this thing where it will be appreciated. Of course I feel ripped off by the high and mighty mogules of business. I will never purchase another thing from HP and would be happy if someone adds me to anylist that slams this crap maker and distributer of *%#$@!
Don Tacoma, WA
re: v40 errors - jammed cartridge, bad svc station by sastanley (5/18/05 10:58 AM)
I have the same problem with my v40 - I cannot believe this post is over a year old with constant posts!! I have the exact same problem, black fingers, and a disassembled printer! At least I only wasted one evening on it. My time is just too valuable. Kudos to you folks that have repaired yours!!
Well I bought my v40 about two years ago. I thought I would be needing it right away. I was wrong. It sat in storage for two years (package never opened) until last night. I FINALLY set it up, put in the cartridges and started getting the "wrong black cartridge" message right away. Bull. The cartridge is an HP cartridge that came with the printer!
I went to Wal-Mart and bought a generic, remanufactured cartridge for $18 and now it seems fine. No more error message. I examined the original black cartridge up close and I see that some of the circuits are badly damaged, so I assume that is why the error message. How it got damamged, I don't know. Box never opened.
I am quite terrified of this machine now, having read all that you folks have been through! I'm so impressed by how industrious some of you have been. Rebuilding your own machines. It's a crying shame that anyone should have to do that. Seriously, some of you guys should start a printer-fixing business! I'm so disgusted by what HP has done to everyone here. I will be sure never to buy another HP machine as long as I live.
I'm spooked about what will be happening to me about a year from now. Any advice for a newbie on how to maintain this sucker so that it doesn't do the old ink-tower gear-breaking thing? I paid $250 for this machine two years ago, and I want my money's worth. What can I do to prevent myself from having to throw this thing over my balcony in 12 months?
Why why why does the "press enter to align cartridges" error message never go away. I have worked in this office since 2003 and I think for about two years it has said that.... is there any way to make it go away?
If you scan thru this thread there are some details on how people fixed theirs. My personal time was too valuable, so I cut my losses and discarded it. I wish I had enough energy to send it to HP's CEO, but I didn't. I recycled the all plastic peices, gave the ink cartridges to my friend and threw the rest in the garbage. Good Luck.
I need the HP CEO's email address! HP will not take real money to pay for my notebook warranty extension. Their CREDIT CARD ONLY POLICY is very consumer UNFRIENDLY !!!!!!!! Thank you in advance, GARY.
Well, what do you know. My v40 just began this "carriage jam" issue today, conventiently after purchasing new ink cartridges, and a swarm of other people have the same problem. Anybody know if you can still get a replacement by contacting the CEO? You can find them here:
This is too funny! I just bought an HP Fax 1230 (which, from what I'm reading, uses the same printing mechanisms and service station as the v40) from a friend of mine for $60. Someone gave it to her and told her it worked. (I guess you really can’t get something for nothing.) Anyway, turned it on … CARRIAGE JAM. Started searching around and found this forum. Crazy – I’ve been a loyal HP customer since forever. I have an HP LaserJet 1000 which works great (knock wood). I snapped up this HP Fax 1230 to replace my HP Fax 900 which no longer feeds outgoing faxes properly. I just can’t believe HP would knowingly put out such a crappy product and then farm out their technical support to another country and then charge for technical support when the warranty is over. I’d never have any recourse w/ HP since, technically speaking, I’m the third owner of the machine. But, this sure makes me want to think twice about buying HP in the future!
Guess I am luckly as I had my v40 almost 2 years before it began with the same list of issues that all are describing on here. It is a shame that a company like HP will put out junk and not stand behind it. It is doubly frustrating that many companies farm out tech support to India and other places where you can't understand them or they you.
Does anyone recommend a good replacement All In One?
SSDD--I have a 5110 that has done the "Carriage jam", "open door" error message. I'm going into Frys in Phoenix to replace w/a Canon. My last Canon was good for 6 years of undergrad and grad school papers. "No more HP for me" is now my motto.
I must be very lucky, since my v40 lasted for over 3 years before it finally broke down. After I put $100 worth of new cartridges in, I had a myriad of messages from "align cartridges" to "carriage jam" to "incorrect ink cartridge." I opened the thing up, and found a gear on the left side that wasn't sitting right and had broken tooth. I adjusted it, and the sounds stopped. Instead, the printer now hung on the "initializing" screen. A little more messing around got it to "paper jam", and now it's stuck on "original jam."
I was considering taking it to a repair shop when I came across this thread after turning to google. I've concluded that my printer is officially dead. I'm just upset that it broke down after spending so much on new ink, which I'm going to try to sell back at a loss. Since I no longer need the all-in-one, I'm switching over to HP's laserjet printes. Unlike the v40, those are actually reliable.
I would be happy to purchase a replacement gear. My HP5110 is in pieces on my workbench and I need the offending gear before I completely forget how to re-assemble it. Thanks!
Wow, If you look at the beginning of this thread, you'd see that it goes all the way back to January 2004? Gotta love the internet....
I need help. Maybe somebody has encountered this already. Knock on wood because I'm reading these threads and it's mostly regarding the paperjam, clunking noise etc.
Has anybody encountered a problem when you do a COPY, the printed page that comes out has a black line on the left side of the page with the rest of the printout?
I thought it would be the cartridge but when the user sends out something to print to the v40, the line doesn't show up.
Any thoughts? Help is greatly appreciated...Thanks. Marvin
My v40 just died of a carriage jam. I came across this thread, got pissed off, and sent HP a bitchy email. Now they're gonna send me the 5100. They told me that they replace all v40s as they are aware that they are defective. I know the 5100 isn't that popular are these boards, but its better than what I expected from a company that merged with compaq.
Well,well,what do you know,I have the same problem from my v40. I have had mine for 3yrs. I'm not going to waste any time, I am going to buy me a new printer/fax. HP Should do something about this problem.
Did you actually read any of the posts on this thread? Maybe you should start with the one right above your post. I think a free printer is a better deal than going out and buying another one, especially since all MFCs by any company are all pure crap. You are just exchanging one POS for another POS.
Add me to the list of v40 users. I work from home and this is a business printer. So I was soooo happy to find out this evening that I will not be able to print out payroll and expense statements, nor will I be able to fax them to my employer.
Have been having alignment problems, but rarely ever paper jams. Today, we've completed the downward spiral to "printer cartridge jam." After an hour of fiddling and cussing at the thing and wondering if I should throw some coffee beans it it, I finally found this site.
Thanks! At least now I know I didn't break it.
Re: HP officejet 5110 series by dwtinfo (8/12/05 9:30 AM)
I justgot off of the chatline with HP. You can access it at www.hp.com and at the home page, type in hp officejet 5110xi. on the next page, choose 'support and troubleshooting'. On the next page choose "chat with ano online technician" under the 'features and alerts' section on the right side of the page. I suspect the conversation will not produce results, but what I did find out is that HP, aware of the problem where the printer will not print, has extended the warranty period on the 5110 model. You will have to register your printer and produce a copy of the invoice, but they will fix it. Now, I am currently waiting for a response from HP, but I have received assurances that it will come. I will keep you posted. I think it would be good for everyone to sign on for the chat session as soon as possible. Maybe if they become saturated with help requests, they will getthe idea that people are not happy!
David, I posted earlier asking about prevention. I do realize that it's a crap machine, but I would still like to know if regular cleaning will prevent the gear from breaking? I'm still in the honeymoon phase, it hasn't broken down yet. Some posters have indicated that it is a build up of ink that causes the breaking to occur, so if I open it up and clean it every few months, that might help prevent things from getting to the literal breaking point, right? HELP!
Re: v40 errors by Stephen (edited 8/14/05 9:13 PM)
Check the product number on the back of the printer, if it ends in A you have the original print engine, which does not have the poorly designed service station found in the models that end in B or C.
My v40xi worked great for a couple years, too, then after a month of nonuse (I kept it off and didn't touch it), when I tried to turn it on again, the power didn't turn on. I pressed the power button but nothing happened. The power source in the back was going in, though. Anyone has any idea what's the problem? Could hot weather and humidity be a cause?
i have an officejet v40 everytime i turn it on and it makes the strange noise is 1 and 2 why does it keep on saying Open Door carriage paper jam and press Enter and everytime i take a look at it there is nothing wrong with it no paper or nothing. my printer doesnt even print anymore period will some1 please help me thanx
Well, well, well. I emailed the CEO directly with this email Monday:
"Basically I'm a very dissatisfied HP customer and I will never buy any HP/Compaq item AGAIN!!
Several years ago I bought an HP v40 printer.
I needed the all-in-one features for an home business. Worked like a charm for awhile then something went wrong with the carriage. I took it to Best Buy where they informed me it would cost me $60 for them to ship it to the HP repair center to have it "looked at". Well i balked because I needed a printer now.
Like a moron I paid another 199.99 for an replacement v40. Now Im not dishonest so I didnt pack up the old one and take it back as if it was the one I just bought.
I figured I could fix it myself (never tried though). Well a little more than a year later the second one crapped out.
Now I have 2 worthless HP printers. Have you seen this forum?
Its amazing how many people have the same problem with this printer!!!! A year or so is not long for a moderatly used printer to last.
Needless to say, I will be researching my next printer purchase for an reliable NON-HP printer!!!
Its time to take the leap into color laser printers and HP will never get another dime from me or my family!!"
I recieved an "we will call you" email Tuesday and on Wendsday I was contacted. Seems the HP v40 has a known carrier issue for the models with a serial # starting with CN. He also asked if there was an colorerd dot on the bottom. I didnt have one and he didnt say why he asked (maybe to see if refurbished?) but he said he could send me a new printer. As the v40 is no longer made I will get an 5510. He said he would overnight it, but no guarentees. Well I got it this morning at 830am!! Thursday that is. 5510 all hooked up and ready to go. We'll see how long this one lasts. Good luck with yours!
the #18 Buchanan Crimp Splice Cap that david mentions above is in the electrical wire area. I looked in the plumbing area and couldn't find it. so I made a part out of some some brass fitting I had. It works but the printer is still making the clunking noise even though the tray is working now.
Cogtx & Dave, thanks so much. Especially the yahoo photos - my hardware engineer husband was able to fix mine in less than an hour. In our case, the left wheel on the dual axle gear in the ink well was missing a tooth. He just flipped it over and it works fine. Not sure how long the until another piece gives out but at least it's working for now. I'm was glad to see some practical advice and solutions - often the best thing is to take matters in your own hands!
I saw a posting stating that the printer keeps telling you that you have the incorrect cartridge. Did you ever get a response or solution to this problem. I have the same problem but with the color cartridge.
Re: v40 errors &750xi errors by rwv1954 (11/13/05 7:24 AM)
I too am getting the "incorrect black cartridge type" error. This is on a cartridge I just removed, cleaned, reloaded, and put back into the machine. Looking at the connection mechanism and carriage cabling mechanisms doesn't give me a lot of faith in their longevity frankly. (I am an electrical engineer, so I know how to spot weak points in designs, lol).
After removing and reinserting the black cartridge a few times, then I get error messages about the color cartridge. Power down, disconnect, count off 2 minutes, power up - same messages. So it "appears" I have a hard failure that is just getting worse with the exercise.
Would appreciate any feedback here from anyone with similar experiences. I originally bought HP because of the "quality" name, and have been happy with this machine for the two years I have owned it. But they should last longer than that, eh? I expect five years service as a minimum from this kind of thing.
I have the errors message "incorrect colors ink" I bought new colors ink after installed in my v40 printer, second error message shows " print alignment page " I guess it time to trask it and get a new printer .
I had a problem with my printer once before. The cartridge would not move! I called HP & they replaced my V40 with no problems. Now it is 2006 & they discontinued making this model, figures... Anyway, we moved recently, I boxed my printer up in it's original box, I packed it in the car so it would not get damaged & now it will not do ANYTHING! I can get it to turn on & that is it. I did notice that there in ink on the bottom of my printer, like there was a leak of some kind. If there is a lawsuit or a replacement program of any kind, count me in!!
HI MARISSA, I KNOW YOUR AD HAS BEEN UP SINCE 04, BUT I JUST GOT A PRINTER LIKE THE ONE YOU HAD THAT KEEPS GIVING ME A PAPER JAM ERROR. DID YOU EVER GET HELP FOR IT?IF SO CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO?
Wow, that gear is so small I am afraid to breath hard next to it. I wonder, how many of you used the clamp method and how many used the pin?
If you used the clamp, did you used the 1st 4 pics or did you reenforce it with (8/8's) 5 and 6?
If you used the pin, did you screw up the gear?
Just want to get a census on what the best method has been till now, I can't financially afford to screw up so I am getting statistically sound decision info on the best way to fix the gear(s) - WITHOUT doing it more than once....
Drilled a hole the size width of hair, dremelled a picture nail (with the fat heads) down to a hair, tapped it in the hole, dremelled the nail off the bottom end and dremelled the head so the it could fit back on the gear box with the big gear over it. I shaved a bit off the big gear to so it could fit on.
Its now working.
It was my 2nd try. The first time I eproxy'ed a nail through a bigger whole that allowed the nail to go through the center - which i then dremelled clean. That made the nail so smll and weak that it didn't hold up. When I re-tried and drilled a smaller hole 90 degrees vertically through the gear, there was a lot more support for the nail.
Need to be a perfect aimer like me though - got one shot...........
I've received a lot of valuable info here and wanted to give something back to the forum. I contacted Tribar about purchasing individual otherwise unattainable replacement gears, here’s what they said:
Hello Mike
Thank You for your interest. Yes we can send one pc too. We are preparing 3d secure internet shop. There will be possibility of buying one pc. There are two possibilities in this time:
Send the money in envelop to our address. After receiving we will send the gears via post in envelop too. Or We prepare invoice and send to you. You will send the money via bank transfer to our account.
The price by the one pc is 15 EUR. Transport cost 5-10 EUR (Sorry I don’t know where you are from). If you are from EU and have not WAT number, we must add our WAT (19%), if you need invoice.
Thank You for contact to internet forum.
Best Regards
Ales Sedlacek Tribar s.r.o. Na Cihadle 51, 16000, Praha Czech republic tel.: +420 233 336 232
I have three DJ 3820 priters two with broken gears. I took one and drilled two small holes and inserted the small bent part of a paperclip and it has been working so far. I have also found a contact in UK to buy the gears. I have to pay through Paypal and still a little leary doing it. He wants $7.50 US per gear and supposed to be better. I have one printer that broke just out of Warranty and did a $74 swapout for one repaired in Mexico. So far it has done very well. With the paperclip repaired one and this one I am good for a while. When I get brave enough I will try to get new gears using the Paypal plan. HP should ashamed about this and other printers as the leaking black cartridge is usually the culprit. I just cleaned mine out the other day. HP must have paid for the so called Service Awards they get.
I have an out or warranty HP V40 that repeatedly shows” Cartridge Jam” and parks the print carriage to the right side. This occurred after replacing an empty ink cartridge. I disassembled the printer and inspected the ink tray gears that seem to be "the problem" on this model.. NO damage to them. I cleaned up the ink stalagmite and put the printer back together. NO resolution to my problem. During Initialization the print carriage at first moves all the way to the left. That is followed by grinding gears on the LEFT side of the printer. Next the assembly in the ink tray moves forward BUT is accompanied by a popping sound . Finally the print head parks to the far right and “ Cartridge Jam” error appears on display. I was told by HP that the Automatic Replacement Plan is no longer in effect....go figure. The rep handling my claim said the best he WOULD do is sell me one of their factory refurbs at a reduced price. Has anyone figured out a sure fix for this problem? I would be grateful for your assistance.
I have replacement gear (small gear) brand new at $7.00 a piece + postage of about $5 to anywhere in the world. It takes about 10 days to get to destination. If you need any email me for details. I also have detailed photos how to replace gear in a pdf file I can mail to anyone.
beleive it or not it needs to be cleaned. look on the inside and clean the back it looks green with brail bumps and the silver rod that the ink cartridge moves on and take your hand and push it where the cartridge is try to clean underneath it to the right of it. Do this with cloth and alcohol it works.
I unjammed my printer and now, even though the jam is gone, the message is still there and I don't know how to get it to work. It has a 1/2" rod inside, so hopefully this is fixable. I don't have a lot of bucks, so would like to do it myself if possible. Any ideas? Or should I try for the replacement program? I would prefer to get it to work, actually.
Re: Re: v40 errors by Anonymous (11/18/06 7:01 AM)
I just found out that my HP 5110 which broke at exactly 14 months may use the same gears you mentioned in this posting. If this is correct can you provide both? I am going to remove these and see if I can manufacture a set of gears from a very dense composite used on aircraft. If possible, it should put an end to this problem, however I would like to purchase the pair of gears you mentioned if they are used in the 5110.
C. Allen
Re: Re: v40 errors by Anonymous (12/2/06 11:52 AM)
im having the same problem also my printer wont print it tells me wrong color cartridge i replaced it and nothing it will fax it will scan but NO print or copy please help me fix this stupid thing
Mine just started doing the same thing as all your V40 units are doing! Error code "c00f0401" and no matter what internet HP checks and suggestions I have taken the fault will not clear. I will not buy another HP product, I am going to stick with Canon from now on. I have had two Canons and they have lasted for years and years with zero issues.
