What is your experience with the HP latex printers

[TopFliteGraphics]

if you don't mind i would like to hear more about how you do it & how it has worked out
due to medical issues with my wife i am giving up 5-6000 sq ft & locating one or two machines in my garage and the 65" laminator and fletcher to a nearby location.

i have my doubts about this but will save $5500/mo on what has been a glorified hobby since the wife had health problems

i don't want to walk away completely (this may be a mistake)

so can it be done out of a garage?

My work area is about 18' x 24' I have a HP 730, 64" Ally laminator, and a Rollover Flexi application table pus a small kitchenette in that area. My Graphtec FC9000-160 sits in a 10'x6' hallway. If I had taller ceilings in the work area and there was no kitchenette, my Fletcher would fit in the work area with no problem. So depending on you garage size, it should be doable.

 

[CMYKing]

But it's the complete opposite, no?
With the latest updates you can use the new style maintenance cartridge on your older L800 that comes from L830.
All the printers now use the new style that will last longer with the waste tank that you can empty or replace separately.

If that's true then I happily stand corrected. I did read somewhere that older printers wouldn't be able to use that cartridge but I must be mistaken. The only difference I can see is a barcode. Which makes me think that you could print the old barcode, slap it on, and trick the printer into thinking you have the new cartridge. This might be handy if you have a surplus of old cartridges that have now become obsolete due to the firmware update.

I am currently running into an issue with emptying the ink waste unit and reusing the cartridge. There seems to be no sensor that tells the printer that the wiper roll for the cartridge is empty. If you reinstall the cartridge the printer will continue to wipe on the same spot which leads to issues like printhead failure or just perpetually dirty printheads. You can empty the ink collection unit once, maybe twice before needing a whole new maintenance cartridge.

 

[dypinc]

The new style maintenance cartridge works fine on the old printer. Works fine on my L700. But I found an issue with the way the springs for the capping station are designed which I believe may cause it not to move to the lower position correctly. Likely it will lead to errors and printhead problems. In my case it only led to an error. after examining both cartridges I discovered the spring issue. After correcting that poor design I had no further errors and it has been ok since. Hopefully HP knows about this and corrects this. At least I got a free maintenance cartridge from discovering the problem.

 

[balstestrat]

If that's true then I happily stand corrected. I did read somewhere that older printers wouldn't be able to use that cartridge but I must be mistaken. The only difference I can see is a barcode. Which makes me think that you could print the old barcode, slap it on, and trick the printer into thinking you have the new cartridge. This might be handy if you have a surplus of old cartridges that have now become obsolete due to the firmware update.

I am currently running into an issue with emptying the ink waste unit and reusing the cartridge. There seems to be no sensor that tells the printer that the wiper roll for the cartridge is empty. If you reinstall the cartridge the printer will continue to wipe on the same spot which leads to issues like printhead failure or just perpetually dirty printheads. You can empty the ink collection unit once, maybe twice before needing a whole new maintenance cartridge.

There's a sensor and it's checking the flag on the side that the printer tells you to check as well.

 

[P Wagner]

The new style maintenance cartridge works fine on the old printer. Works fine on my L700. But I found an issue with the way the springs for the capping station are designed which I believe may cause it not to move to the lower position correctly. Likely it will lead to errors and printhead problems. In my case it only led to an error. after examining both cartridges I discovered the spring issue. After correcting that poor design I had no further errors and it has been ok since. Hopefully HP knows about this and corrects this. At least I got a free maintenance cartridge from discovering the problem.

What did you do to correct the spring issue on the new maintenance cartridge?

 

[dypinc]

What did you do to correct the spring issue on the new maintenance cartridge?

The best I can describe it is the new spring steel is weaker and more easily bendable and attached differently because of the ink container. This cause the tension for pushing down the capping station not to be strong enough as they were positioned so as the force was not at the tip of the spring steel where it needed to be. I repositioned and re-bent the spring steel so that it had more and more even force on the capping station and felt the same tension as the older cartridge version. Error message attached.

I might add after figuring it out I realized the tech wasn't very knowledgeable about this error or what was apparently causing it. And HP must of not had any notes on it yet. Since they already had the replacement on the way I decided I was not going to call back in and tell them my fix.

Here was my original post about the problem. https://www.signs101.com/threads/700w-error-0021-0001-0090.183157/