Close printhead cover on DJ 500 (SOLVED)

[theengel]

So I walk up to a working 24" Designjet 500 to replace the trailing cables (the old ones were sagging and causing occasional carriage jams) and the encoder strip (it was so old that I was afraid to clean it and wipe away the stripes).

It was kind of dark, and I couldn't see real well.

I turn it on after I'm finished, and I get the "close printhead cover" error... AFTER the carriage moves back and forth just fine.

I was racking my brains trying to find a bad spot in the encoder strip, then reinstalling the old one, then the new one again and checking the encoder sensor and the cable coming from that. I couldn't reinstall the trailing cables, because the old ones fell apart as I had taken them out... the glue on the metal contacts.

Finally, I pulled a 42" trailing cable from my stock, and installed those... I just bunched up the excess at the left end.

It worked fine.

I examined the one I had installed, and found these little teeth marks from my dog.

trailing.jpg

[Kiran Otter]

That's funny, and also interesting. I would have kept going down the encoder strip/sensor path because of the message.

Kiran