HP Designjet L25500 Cyan Blocks of death

[Romney]

I have a very urgent question for the Signs 101 Community...

Over the span of the last 3 months our wonderful printer started to develop this disgusting habit of printing Cyan Blocks randomly in the upper quadrant of our prints. When I say Blocks I mean perfectly sized Cyan/Light Cyan Print head shaped rectangles. Not a head strike.

At first it would only appear on our large substrate +36 Inches. It would appear at random in the start, middle and or end of a run. The size of the job did not matter. On small jobs under a few feet in length it might hit or it might not. It normally will hit the substrate anywhere on the left 20"on the substrate. Anything under this is perfect.

It will happen on test prints sent from the printer display, on the image being ripped from Flexi (our jobs) and printed or in the white dead space away from the prints.

It is never any other color. Both cyan/light cyan print-heads have been replaced and this did not correct the issue.

We have spent thousands to have Maint. 3 performed by an HP rep. with-in the last month and this did not correct the issue.

I was told that the funky looking ((part number) CH955-67054)) ISS PCAs All

was missing a very small little rubber gasket type !#@$ing part that goes down into the printer carriage and blows the excessive ink out of the head and into the drop detector.

Of course you can't purchase the cheap !@#$ing gasket but have to buy the whole apparatus PCA.

The HP Rep did not have the part and told me this could be the issue and if we wanted it replaced (no guarantee that it would solve our issue) it would be another trip charge. My boss declined.

So now this is my last resort. I hope someone out there still using these older printers might have seen this issue before or might know what im talking about.
I can provide pictures and further explanation on anything and everything.

Help me Signs101, your my only hope..
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[Romney]

Update: After attempting to work out the problem I found the name of the part missing the little rubber gasket is called a Primer Assembly. It was more likely than not bumped while the carriage rail was being lubricated causing the 2 cent rubber stopper to pop off and disappear into oblivion or the long since replaced cleaning kit. I pulled the print heads and cleaned the contacts on the station. Nothing seems to be working.

Is this being caused by a bad electric connection shorting out the Cyan Heads in the trailing cables? It's so random It's hard to put into words. After cleaning the cyan/lc many times and sending a block of dark blue I found that the fouling increased to about the size of a business card with Wet Stains of Cyan.

Do I need an HP Exorcist?

 

[Romney]

All I want for Xmas is to fix this printer.

 

[GP_Oz]

I dont see how the ISS or primer has anything to do with this issue

We usually see what you have but jetted across the entire scan axis. A carriage board usually solves this.
I would put a loaner board in and let the user evaluate what happens next

 

[Romney]

I dont see how the ISS or primer has anything to do with this issue

We usually see what you have but jetted across the entire scan axis. A carriage board usually solves this.
I would put a loaner board in and let the user evaluate what happens next

Any recommendations on where to find parts? I know the mark up from HP direct is outrageous and its hard to trust all parts sources... especially used parts.

 

[GP_Oz]

Any recommendations on where to find parts? I know the mark up from HP direct is outrageous and its hard to trust all parts sources... especially used parts.

Price usually works out the same from other vendors.
Here in Oz there is next to no mark up as they are very expensive to buy in and you are competing with HP also.

 

[Romney]

Now we might be looking to finance a new printer. At what point do you give up on a machine that is no longer in warranty and is having indescribable problems? I love the printer but it is becoming more and more dated every year and I know it will have further costly issues down the line. Recouping some of the money on parting it out might be our best option.