Anyone have one of those new HP printers with 6 cartridges?

My HP all in one is starting to fail after 80,000 prints, I'm trying to decide whether to have an out of warranty exchange for $250-300 or to buy one of the new home all in ones for $400.

The new ones use 6 seperare cartridges but there is no mention about printheads, I tried to ask HP live help about the printheads but they were clueless as to what I was asking about (how did they even get hired???). So does anyone have or seen one of these 6 cartridge HP printers? I'm talking about the HP 02 cartridges where the 6 cartridges simply attach to the front of the printer and have pipes to suck the ink out of them and into the printhead.

My question is, are these printheads replaceable or has HP caught Epson's "no replacable printhead-itis syndrome"? I would never, ever, ever buy a printer without a replaceable printhead, certainly not at $400 US, this automatically makes it a disposable printer and printheads will always end up failing just like lightbulbs end up burning, that's why HP had the intelligence to have user replaceable printheads for ever... until now possibly, as I cannot find any information at all about the printheads for these and they are nowhere to be found for sale. I have also looked at one of these printers quickly in stores and could not find any sign that the head is replaceable, so has HP lost their mind like Epson and started to make disposable printers? This is the exact reason I never have and never will buy and epson or canon printer, I hope HP isn't starting this insane design, everything else on those printers is great, but that single issue would ruin it all for me.

If it really can't be replaced, I'll have to get my current HP all in one replaced, it has not one, but 4 replaceable printheads, one per color, along with 4 seperate cartridges per color.

Thanks

Well I work for staples and those ones that use the 02 cartridges do not have a user serviceable printhead. If you must have one that uses a printhead check out the k550

Do you have a model number for the one you are talking about getting?
I'm thinking your old one was an OfficeJet Pro K550 series..not a home printer

I already have the K550, but I'm looking for an all in one to replace my current HP all in one that's starting to fail.

The other all in ones have those ridiculously small cartridges with the built in printheads, I do high volume printing so that's out of the question for me.

How could HP really have made a printer without a user replaceable printhead??? I'm blown away that they really would have done something this stupid. That's like selling a $400 lamp with a non repleceable light bulb and you'd have to buy a new $400 lamp each time the bulb burns, that's the kind of stupidity I expect from epson and canon, not from HP!

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Originally Posted by geoscomp

Do you have a model number for the one you are talking about getting?
I'm thinking your old one was an OfficeJet Pro K550 series..not a home printer

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I was thinking of the HP Photosmart C7100, the one I have now is the $600 HP officejet 9110, the only thing I don't like about it is that it can't print the last half inch of the paper (quite stupid for a $600 printer).

I also have the K550, but I want to replace my failing 9110 all in one. It seems like I'll be getting another 9110 and keep living without a printable last half inch (I use the K550 when I need the last half inch printed).

Anyway as I said, a non replaceable printhead is as stupid as a non replaceable light bulb on a $400 lamp, not something I was expecting from HP.

Are there any printer techs here? The specific problem with my officejet 9110 is that I thought the printheads needed replacing as many nozzles were not firing, so I put brand new heads, print an new nozzle test pattern, and all the EXACT SAME nozzles don't fire on the new head, this clearly means there's an electronic problem inside the printer.

I'd much prefer to simply order a new circuit board/cable/whatever and replace it myself than pay $300 for HP to send me a refurb unit (which could be even worst for all I know). The problem is I have absolutely no idea what part is failing and needs replacing, does anyone know what part failure would cause this sort of problem?

I'm quite good at fixing electronics, in fact I fixed my tape drive of a damaged eject mecanism and blown main board using parts from another broken drive that luckily had different parts that failed and was able to get my drive like new and it works great now, so I'd much prefer fixing the printer myself, especialy since it weighs around 50 pounds and would cost a fortune to ship for exchange or repair. The only thing stopping me is that I haven't got a clue which part needs to be replaced.

Would anyone happen to have any idea? Are there any local printer repair shops so I can avoid sending it to HP? I'd much prefer to have mine repaired than getting a refurb, and would like even more to repair it myself unless getting it fixed isn't too expensive.

Thanks

you said the reason why they did this...........$$$$$$$$$$$

I think my first choice now would be fixing the printer myself, are there any printer techs on here and if so what part failure would cause nozzles to fail if the printheads themselves have been ruled out as a possible cause? If I can just find what part is defective I'll be able to order it and fix it myself, many websites sell all the internal components on my printer/copier.

I'm not a printer tech specifically, but I am an electronic repair tech. If there is a pattern to the occurrence of non-functioning nozzles, that could help with diagnosis. For example, at the usage you mention, a break or breaks in the flexible loom carrying the control signals up to the printhead(s) is a possible. Depending on the particular matrix used, this should give patterns like missing rows, columns or blocks in each sweep of the printhead.

A similar thing can occur without breakage of the flexible loom if some of the contacts in the connector where the flat loom plugs onto a circuit board have developed a high impedance connection. I find this at times in LCD monitors where it can cause pixel aberrations in columns or rows on the LCD display. Like above, it won't cause individual or random pixel aberrations as the loom only carries enough signal wires to address the display as a matrix.

If disconnecting and re-fitting the flat loom temporarily reduces or eliminates the problem, then it's usually successfully cured by cleaning the end contacts of the loom with pure alcohol, and then I also have a suitable corrosion inhibitor to treat the socket with, which most people wouldn't have to hand.

These are a couple of possibilities that spring to mind that could be investigated by a reasonably capable person without requiring a lot of test equipment.

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Originally Posted by ClickHere2Surf.com

This is the exact reason I never have and never will buy and epson or canon printer,

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FYI - Most canon printers that I've ever seen have replacable printheads. I was a printer/copier tech for 3 years.