HP psc 1600 Horizontal spread sheet lines and printing is wavy

[pearlhouse]

My HP psc 1600 is printing all horizontal lines and data on a spread sheet in a wavy pattern.
What can I do???

 

[PeterBJ]

If the vertical lines had been wavy, I would have guessed that the timing strip or as HP calls it encoder strip needed cleaning. Are the spreadsheets printed in landscape orientation? If so try cleaning the timing strip with a soft tissue paper moistened with a window cleaner with ammonia. Could you upload a scan of the error?

 

[pearlhouse]

You are right. I am printing in landscape so it is the vertical lines that are all wavy. I cleaned the belt (1/4" wide tan or brown) is this the right one??? It had a lot of ink on it and took several wipes to get it clean. I did this by holding the tissue against it while I worked the cart. holder left and right. I did this on both sides of the cart. holder. When I was done turned the printer back on and now I get a carriage jam msg. If I say OK it goes through a series of loud moves makes lot of noise and then gives me the error msg again. I tried this several times so apparently I have moved something out of place when I was cleaning the belt. I turned the printer off hoping it would reset itself but I get the same error when I turned it back on. So now what to do????

 

[Tudor]

<---- click to enlarge

The timing strip is made of clear plastic and has very fine lines on it. In the case of MG5350 it has a spring on the left side.

 

[pearlhouse]

AHHH I was cleaning the tractor belt that moves the cart. holders. I now see the clear timing strip and have cleaned with ammonia windex. Tried again and still the same problem. The cart holder runs back and forth and makes some strange noises and then comes up with the error msg ------ carriage jam. I guess I should say about a month ago the same thing happened and I gave up on the printer. Then one day I turned on the power strip and WAH-LA the printer started up and gave me the READY sign . I printed a text doc and it was wavy but I ignored it and figured this was for another day. So now Im trying to fix this once and for all but seems like im back to square one.

 

[PeterBJ]

The noise indicates a mechanical error. If you are lucky it is caused by a lack of lubrication. so you could try to lubricate the cartridge carriage. if I remember correctly the carriage slides on a shiny rod about 1/4" in diameter in the PSC 1610. This rod might need cleaning and lubrication. So open the printer like you would change a cartridge, and pull the power cord without first switching the printer off. You can now slide the cartridge carriage from side to side. Try wiping the shiny rod clean and apply some thin oil to it and slide the carriage from side ti side to lubricate the bushings in the carriage and wipe off excessive oil. I don't know the proper lubricant, but a thin oil with Teflon worked well for me on a HP PSC 750 that I repaired for a friend. It was noisy and printing was erratic and some times the printer would stop in the middle of a print job. After cleaning the timing strip and cleaning and lubricating the carriage sliding rod, the printer was OK again and much quieter in operation.

 

[pearlhouse]

Well right again ---- I cleaned up the bar and put a little lite oil on a tissue rubbed on the bar on both sides of the cart holder. Turned the printer back on and it does sound a lot better with no error messages. So I printed the spreadsheet again but sorry to say I got the same results wavy lines. I tried cleaning the timing strip a second time also but this didn't help either. So is there anything else I can do????
I will say that over time I have had this printer (I bought it new) There have been many paper jams where it had picked up multiple sheets of paper and I had to manualy pull them out which sometimes took quite a bit of force and then the paper would tear and I would have to pull out the remaining pcs. I am pretty sure there are no remnant pcs. left behind. But is it possible I knocked it out of whack by pulling these pcs. out of the printer.

 

[turbguy]

Have you tried aligning the printhead?

If no, do so.

If you have, does your driver permit high quality unidirectional (instead of bi-directional) printing by telling it it's using high quality paper or a high quality photo mode? You can try that to see if there's any difference.

Wayne

 

[The Hat]

Pulling paper back out of a printer is a real no no, simply you shouldnt do it.
You should only remove a paper jam in the paper path direction, out through the front.

It is alright however to cut away as much of the paper as possible to help alleviate the jam,
pulling paper backwards will cause all sorts of problems (Including print problems) and can in most cases
damage the printer to a point where it will refuse to feed paper anymore.

There are some animals that cant go backwards and paper stuck in a printer is also another one.

I dont know anything about your poor output but a print head alignment
(Manual if possible) might solve your problem as suggested above.

Can you please post your most recent nozzle check,
to give us a better understanding of your current print-out problem ?

 

[pearlhouse]

Well both u guys were right. I needed to run an alignment. This went really well and now it seems to be working fine. No noises because I cleaned and lubed print cart bar and now that I aligned the printer Im getting straight lines both vertical and Horizontal. I totaly forgot about the alignment because once I aligned I use the same carts over and over by refilling them. How easy it is to forget. Thanx again guys. Now if I can get my canon mx860 working Ill really be happy. But thats another story