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Author Topic: HP Officejet 7310 Printing Dark Grey Bands Off Edge of Page  (Read 3686 times)

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sburtchin

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    HP Officejet 7310 Printing Dark Grey Bands Off Edge of Page
    « on: March 14, 2013, 04:55:40 AM »
    I found an Officejet 7310 at a garage sale for $10. It was printing white streaks. I printed a test page and made a color copy before I bought it. Then it sat on a shelf for a year and all the black nozzles plugged. I soaked the black cartridge in a puddle of ammonia overnight to dislove the dried ink which got it printing black again. Soon after it started printing wide dark grey bands, horizontally across the page occasionally.  You can read the underlying text.  Sometimes they begin with a narrow block of cyan and end with a narrow block of magenta.  These bands are the same width as the printhead nozzles, dark grey, and about half usually include blocks or bars of pure magenta/cyan/yellow mixed in. This has progessively gotten worse. Now it does this on every page.  The 'HP Print and Scan Doctor' says everything is OK.

    Suspecting the ammonia might have damaged the electronics, I tried a new black cartridge/printhead from OD, and the problem persisted. OD graciously accepted them back (it was a buy 2 special) and refunded my $50.  Do I want to roll the dice on a ($43) tri-color cartridge?

    I am wondering if anyone has seen this problem before.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

    DaveLembke



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    Re: HP Officejet 7310 Printing Dark Grey Bands Off Edge of Page
    « Reply #1 on: March 14, 2013, 04:18:57 PM »
    Looks like the prior owner was trying to sell a troubled printer possibly, why else would he or she sell it so cheap. I never buy modern inkjets at garage sales, and will only pick up Dot Matrix ones for older computers needing them etc as well as there is still a demand for them for businesses with carbon copy forms on tractor feed stock, so I have cleaned them up added an inexpensive ribbon and listed them on ebay and made $50 to $100 each on them in working condition.

    The one benefit to this printer picking it up for just $10 though is that HP for example has a trade in policy at Staples and some other stores where they will give you $50 off the price of a new printer of a specific price range. So you could use it for $40 off getting your $10 back. My brother used this policy to get $50 off of a new HP printer and the printer he used was being thrown away on the corner..LOL

    Unfortunately this model printer was never designed to be serviceable like the business laser printers etc. They were designed to be cheap to make the sale and then get you on the ink to make the profit. I doubt that changing color cartridge will fix this as for you already swapped out the black and that didnt help and the color observed is grey.



    sburtchin

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      Re: HP Officejet 7310 Printing Dark Grey Bands Off Edge of Page
      « Reply #2 on: March 15, 2013, 04:56:55 PM »
      Thanks for your thoughtful response.  I may go for that trade-in deal, or buy another cheap printer (just for such a deal) if I get this one working.  At worst I have a really good $10 scanner.  I will see if Cartridge World will let me try a color cartridge.  They are more concerned about the ink than the seal on the package.  Not gonna stick my neck out again on this printer!

      She (the seller) seemed to have a good talking point.  She was using it for her small business (right there) and needed to replace it fast.  People can't hardly give these things away!  I have already passed up a few free ones because I didn't have the storage space.  Her sister was married to the manager at Office Max, so she could get new printers at cost.  I also bought a $6 non-working Officejet 7130 from her because my 7130 has a burned out carriage parking motor.  She priced it at what OM would give her for the empty cartridges.

      I have been burned before on electronics, so now I only consider things that are priced at or below salvage value, or working while I'm there.  If not I make an insanely low offer.  For example, I recently bought a 2GHz HP dual-trace oscilloscope with all the probes for $10.  Just the probes are worth over $100 used, if you can find them.  I got him to put it through the paces while I was there.  In the last hour of the third sale day people are ready to deal when you give them their very first offer.

      DaveLembke



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      Re: HP Officejet 7310 Printing Dark Grey Bands Off Edge of Page
      « Reply #3 on: March 15, 2013, 05:13:16 PM »
      Nice score on the oscilloscope. I only have a dinosour 10mhz tektronix single channel and that was $100 a year ago..LOL... but it was way better than the Heath Kit Oscilloscope I had before that which was really old as seen here.http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/heath_oscilloscope_io_21io2.html
      I gave this Heath Kit to a friend who was going into college for electronics. It was better than nothing for experimenting, but pretty useless for my needs. The 10Mhz I have now is very limited but at least even if I cant lock on to a signal sync I can see its present or not if greater than 10Mhz..lol

      sburtchin

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        Re: HP Officejet 7310 Printing Dark Grey Bands Off Edge of Page
        « Reply #4 on: March 16, 2013, 01:11:35 AM »
        Wow!  I have almost the identical same one.  I designed and built a second input channel (hybrid tube and solid state) bolted onto the side when I had lots of free time.  Worked great for about three months, then just stopped working.  Don't mix tubes and transisters unless you build in lots of overload protection, I guess.

        If you already have the probes, you can usually find lots of slightly outdated scopes on the cheap at any ham radio convention.  The probes get sold after the owner passes on.