Have a DesignJet 5000, when turning on, carrier goes to left, then right, over the service station, then display says "check printhead path (2)". Carrier seems to move smoothly. Tried cleaning off carrier shaft and lubricating, no luck. carrier belt starting to fray, Possibly that? Thanks...... Jeff M.
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Check Print Head Path errors...
Hello. There are several possible causes for the "check print head path" error. The plotter scan axis motor has encountered unusual resistance while moving the carriage or the pulses from the encoder strip don't match the motion command given to the motor. The possible causes are: The carriage has hit the edge of the media and jammed, the carriage has hit a foreign object, the carriage motor has failed, the encoder strip is dirty, the encoder sensor is dirty or faulty, the ink tube system is not routed correctly and is catching on the frame, the belt is worn out and is missing teeth, the motor pulley is full of debris and is causing the carriage to move unevenly, a wrong cover screw (too long) is installed in the ink tube door and is hitting the carriage, the rails the carriage moves on are causing too much friction (usually from evaporated and dirty lubricants)... That's all I can think of at the moment. The most common cause by far a worn out belt. Check for debris under the belt that looks like pencil erasure crumbs. If crumbs are present, the belt is falling apart and needs to be replaced. A belt replacement kit designed for end users or inexperienced technicians can be seen at: HP Designjet 5000 5500 carriage belt I hope this helps. Bob -
Bob, good coverage of all the possibilities and I agree about the belt.
Jeff, if you change the belt, be sure and clean the belt drive pulley teeth out also.Comment
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Bob and Ducttape. thanks for your replies. Went back to the machine today, teeth on belt look good, the "fraying" I thought I saw was really junk in between the teeth, maybe paper dust? Cleaned out teeth and also cleaned belt drive pulley and the encoder strip. Seems to work. Thanks..... Jeff M.Comment
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Remember what Bob said about the little bits of black crumbs and such falling down from the belt. This will plug the pulley spaces , but also the belt then will have a catastrophic failure when it goes, it will disintegrate fairly quickly, so do keep an eye out for it.Comment
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Will do. Belt actually looked pretty good. Thanks again.Comment
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i fixed 2 or 3 in one week with this error and it was the motor teeth had belt gunk built up on it and belt still looked good...clean it and youll be goodComment
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I have similar problem!
So, I have "Check Printhead Path (2)" error.
I cleaned encoder and reader, rails are lubricated and clean, no obstructions in any way.
Belt seems OK - it is not worn or something...
So, everything seems OK.
In diagnose purpose I printed demo pages form printers memory, and they come out OK.
But when I want to print something from RIP, I'm getting that "Check Printhead Path (2)" error!!??
So, how can it be?
If it has problem with encoder, reader, belt or obstructions how come it can print demo pages from printer, but not the ones sent from RIP??Comment
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did you check carriage motor teeth?
seems to me you are on the right track, if it prints demo but not job sent to it then you MAY have a hard drive error...On my first call i did with this error i called TSA and talked to my buddy and he was like STAY AWAY from this job, He said he was dealing with a tech in california with same problem and he replaced belt,carriage,encoder and it still didnt fix it, it ended up being the hard drive and thats a major job between installing,calibrating, updating firmware and everything else that goes with it...I got lucky b/c i didnt stay away from the job though, i figured i go atleast look at it and it was a gunked up carriage motor...if it woulda been the hard drive i would have not billed them and told them to call HP or something, I just to busy to take on a 3 or 4 hour job these days..got to many calls waiting all the time.
If its a hard drive then i wish you luck. I dont see it being anything else though, if it was mechanical it would not print demo right.Call TSA world ask for lee and tell him your deal and see what he says, ask him about the tech in cali. that had this prob and what the outcome was, He might know a workaround, they keep tech notes just for problems like this.Comment
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Re: DesignJet 5000 "Check Printhead Path (2)"
We had a few issues with Check Printhead path (2) and printhead faults popping up very randomly. Ive been very good on the maintenance side of things and fitted a new drive belt, cleaned and lubed the rails etc. but we have sill (particularly on a cold day) been getting the printhead path error.
Turned out to be the PSU, see a blog post on the cause and repair: How to repair a DesignJet 5500 with Check print-head path (2) error - York Print CompanyComment
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