930C clogged or not ?

[coloredfingers]

Hi everybody, I was given a 930C and bought refilled cartridges for it at a Cartridge World shop, but after printing a few tens of color schematics (only thin lines) the magenta stopped printing. When opening the lid, the print head stops in front of the icon, so the sensor does not say this color is empty. Running a few cleaning cycles from the control panel did not help (using default plug and play driver that comes with Windows XP, no HP bloatware installed). How to tell if it is really empty or how to unclog the head ? thanks

 

[bsanotrun]

What happens when you wipe the cartridge print head gently across some absorbent paper (kitchen towel/toilet paper in UK)
you should see three clear lines red blue yellow
if not place cart with printhead down in an old sock, take outside and swing vigorously, then try the smear test again

 

[coloredfingers]

Smear test OK, the three lines went on the absorbent paper after hitting the cartridge. The contacts look clean on both printer and cartridge. The self-test (that prints patterns and scans them with a blue light) leaves a page with green checkmarks everywhere but only black, yellow and blue patterns. Is there a way to make sure the cartridge is bad, to avoid buying another one for a dead printer ?

 

[PeterBJ]

Even if the contact points on the cartridge and in the cartridge holder look clean it might help cleaning them with a moist piece of kitchen paper and wiping them dry after that. I have had success with cleaning what looked to be perfectly clean contacts a few times, but of course there is no guarantee that it will work. You could give it a try.

 

[bsanotrun]

Smear test OK, the three lines went on the absorbent paper after hitting the cartridge. The contacts look clean on both printer and cartridge. The self-test (that prints patterns and scans them with a blue light) leaves a page with green checkmarks everywhere but only black, yellow and blue patterns. Is there a way to make sure the cartridge is bad, to avoid buying another one for a dead printer ?

you can buy empty (virgin not been previously refilled) cartridges very cheaply on ebay for that printer and they are easy to refill,

mike

 

[gigigogu]

Happened to me with HP78 cartridges. Refilled carts may develop air pockets near printhead that can be a real pain to remove. In addition to sock method described above one may try to apply a small overpressure with cartridge upside down, or to suck ink through nozzles using a dedicated refill clip. To my knowledge no method is 100% guaranteed. This was the reason I retired my HP 930C printer.

 

[coloredfingers]

Going back to the 930C after failure of my other printer (Canon S750). When opening the lid, the head now seeks the "dead color" smiley. Never seen in front of the "low level" icon, but went back to "good" position once after soaking one night in water, then the builtin test printed only a few faint strips of magenta in the right place (shake & smear test always OK). The control logic must be detecting an electrical failure instead of clogged nozzles.
Will buy another cartridge. Then how to pump back the good ink from this bad but almost full cartridge ?