when I started @ paragon they had a HP5500 sitting in the corner doing nothing. they owned it for one year and had printed about 2 meters with it.
now it basically runs about 12 hours a day for the last 2 years. i have really never had to do much maintenance to it becasuse it just keeps printing great.
anyone else have the same experience or something different. now that this machine is 3 years old should I start expecting things to break?
i would say so yes. from my experience a while ago when we ran 5500's they were almost perfect for 2yrs then bang, thing sstarted going wrong big time. what i found was once they start to drop they drop like a lead balloon. they almost grind to a halt. get a service contract quick!!
I like HP as well, simple and reliable. Now I am using Staedtler refills but causing lot of problems. We ran few months almost without problem but last two months... Mostly with cyan, prints are changing colors on a daily basis. Not have a clue what could be a cause? Sometimes causes banding, not starting printing fully at very beginning of the print or even change in color across the whole width of print ???!!!! We vent catridges, printheads are replaced on a regular basis... (some even say that the problem could be in the ink line itself, not refill ink, but how could I find that out because HP service allways put blame on 3rd party ink - understandable...) Any comment would be appreciated.
Davor wrote: ...Mostly with cyan, prints are changing colors on a daily basis. Not have a clue what could be a cause? Sometimes causes banding, not starting printing fully at very beginning of the print or even change in color across the whole width of print ...
I've been working with the 5000 and 5500 series for a while now and have found them to be very reliable "if maintained".
I believe that every year "minimum" you need to get them serviced: -rails cleaned & oiled -contacts cleaned -platten cleaned -etc, etc, etc. And about every 3-4 years you need to hit it with a new belt.
If you are using third party inks and are having "issues" the first thing I'd do is place those inks about 8-9 feet in the air on a shelf. (Of course this only applies to the external tube feed systems like the Staedtler refills)
Those systems relys on a specific grafity for the ink to flow correctly.
This may not apply to you but I've seen it a couple times already where I walk in the shop and the ink bottles are sitting on the machine or on low shelf beside it. The first thing I do is raise the system!
