HP black cartridge failed

On an HP Photosmart 1215 printer. It says Black Cartridge Failed, Replace black cartridge. It did work, now it does not. I tried another cartridge. No help. Cleaned electrical contacts. No help. Uninstalled, and reinstalled printer. No Help. I have owned this printer for several years, with no problems. It did a great print job until now. I do not want to use it for a doorstop. Hoping someone can help me.

 

Yes it has a cleaning option, but it will not do it as long as the black cartridge has failed.

 

Most inkjet/bubblejet printers are built to throw away. If you have cleaned the contacts on both printer and cartridge there is not much else to do. Most places that will repair printers will tell you it's cheaper to buy a new one than fixing it. There is a possibility that the controller board in the printer has failed. This is usually the most common failure of inkjets. Most of the controller boards sell for $50-$100. But if you don't intend to install it yourself then you can add atleast an hour of labour to that. So you could spend $100+ on the repair or get a new printer for $79.

I have a small graveyard of inkjet printers and alot of them have IC's that have failed causing the printer to report all sorts of weird things.

 

I have another printer that will print, which is an HP desktop 5740. It has small cartridges and the whole unit does not compare with what the Photosmart did do. I got it when I bought this computer. It appears that it is worth what I paid. $00.00 It does print black, but not very good. There is a way to print "Gray Scale" with "Black Cartridge" only. There is also "Fast economical printing" which I will try later. I used these on the other printer for higher speed with black text. It remains to be seen what it will do with photographs. I do print some of these.

 

I suppose you have checked the suggested cleaning method:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&product=57595&lang=en&cc=us&docname=bpa00299

I would see if I could speak with a serviceman, there may be known problem with those models that could be repaired inexpensively or at least find out the cost of repair of the possible causes, it would be no skin off my nose. HP printer service that I have dealt with have been exceptionally helpful.
http://hp.infonow.net/bin/findNow?LIST_LIST_KEY=2-11437706750008337316&CLIENT_ID=HP_LOC_USA_SRV
(for the US)

Matt

 

Hi mattman. I did clean the electrical contacts. No help. I tried your second web site and could not get on.

 

US service locator:
http://hp.infonow.net/bin/findNow?CLIENT_ID=HP_LOC_USA_SRV&PAGE=Search.html&LANGUAGE=USA_ENGLISH

Matt

 

It seems that the printer electronics have actually failed. As Dcrypter has mentioned, printers nowadays are designed for maby one to two years before the big problems start occuring. I think it may be the electronic in the printer itself where the contacts on the cartridge connect to that have failed. It would be a much wiser option to fork out for a new printer rather than find someone to repair it.

In my own personal opinion if you go for another printer i would recommend a Canon over all other makes. I work in a Cartridge World store that refills cartridges and believe me, there are little or no problems compared to the other models. For example, if you fork out a bit more and go for around £80 - £150 Canon printer with single ink tanks. The ink tanks have no electronic print heads to fail, translucent walls and lots of ink inside. They are relatively cheap cartridges compared to other brands like Lexmark and HP, but the print quality is still brilliant. It is the running cost that you have to think about aswell, for some of the other brands can be very expensive. Especially if you do lots of photographic printing.

My suggestion is get a new canon printer with single ink tanks, you will save the money in the long run.