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Old HP DeskJet/ScanJet Power Supplies Failing?
[null] asks: "Has anyone experienced problems with HP DeskJet printers (mostly 600 series) or ScanJet 4100C due to the power supply going bad? I've just got back from a friend whose scanner is currently toast as the power supply decided to put out something other than the 30VDC/400mA/14W it is spec'd for. I'm extremely suspicious because I have a DeskJet 660Cse with the same power supply brick that was working fine up until a month ago when it would go from printing fine to printing several sheets of garbage out of any given print job. I checked it with my tester and saw it giving out 37.5VDC (25% over spec). This link from HP PartSurfer lists the HP products using this power supply and has a picture. This power supply usually featuers a model number of C2175A molded on it. My friend's supply was listed as made by Lucent and mine is by NMB, causing me to wonder if the design itself is possibly defective. Google is not being very helpful in finding people with similar problems, and we are talking about pretty old hardware here that people would probably throw out rather than bother trying to order parts for. HP also has recalls on power supplies for DeskJet 800/900 series and some PhotoSmart 1x00 series printers. How about it, anyone else had problems?"
Almost any power supply, unless very well regulated will show a voltage higher than its rated voltage if you test it with no load. That's not likely to be the problem.
I just had a user that works from home that called me with a trouble with her "old HP printer".
She's experiencing the same problems as the poster, and now i'm even more intrigued. I think i might actually do some work instead of being the stand-in for BOFH.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
There's a few problems with this article.
The Deskjet 600 series has been around for something along the line of 8 years (I had a 660Cse with my state-of-the-art 486). If the problem is just beginning to happen now, I'd recon that the printer will already be failing due to other reasons (the 600 series has a blotting sponge, and a few other parts which are designed to fail after a few years). Finally, after 1997(?), the 600 series was demoted HP's super-cheap product line - simply put, they were horrible printers to begin with. If you want a quality printer, you're going to have to spend more than $50.
In addition, all of the Deskjet 800/900 series took power from standard two or three prong AC plugs, NOT DC transformers. The recall was due to a manufacturing defect in the plug, not the circuitry.
Finally, I'd also like to note that the power bricks for all the 600 series were interchangable, but HP changed to a significantly different design for the 700 series, and eliminated them entirely with the 800/900 series. Working in an institutino which owns 150+ Deskjet 600s, I can report that I've seen a bunch of the power bricks to fail, but the printers typically fail of other reasons long before that (very fuzzy output, excesive noise, bad paper feeders, and other mechanical failures). They typically break within 2 years of purchase for mechanical reasons.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Model: C2175A
MFR: Lucent
Real Voltage: 38V
Device: Scan Jet 4100C
Status: Works great!
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Sounds like you just need to reinstall the driver.
I doubt it's the power supply unless there is no sign of life from the printer at all, or if the printer literally starts on fire or something.
Just submitted the following to articles...
Low-ESR Aluminum Electrolytic Failures Linked to Taiwanese Raw Material Problems
Nic Components reproduces this article from Passive Component Industry Magazine telling the tale of a defecting scientist who stole an electrolyte formula for low ESR capacitors and GOT IT WRONG! Natch that the stuff made it to market and the result could be millions of premature motherboard, power supply, and other consumer electronics failures.
I can't say that I'm familiar with this "power brick" problem that you speak of, having never seen one.
I've got an old HP scanner here, myself, model IIcx. It accepts 120VAC from a standard IEC connector on the back, located beside the 50-pin Centronics SCSI connector and terminator. This big, legal-size monster weighs an easy 25 or 30 pounds. The servos inside of it produce a whine that is not dissimilar to a Formula 1 engine, and visibly shake the bench it lives on from the torque produced.
It makes decent scans by default, and positively beautiful ones once properly calibrated to the output device.
Powered up continuously for almost a decade and seeing occasional use over the same period, I expect it to keep going more-or-less indefinately. This is due in no small part to the fact that good OSS drivers exist and that SCSI just refuses to die - there's little chance of it being outmodded anytime soon - but also because of the iron content.
Next time you buy a $100 box of plastic and genuine Chinese air labeled "HP Scanner", expecting it to last forever, remember this: They don't make 'em like they used to, kid. Meanwhile, you might want to reexamine your use of the word "old."
Good luck with your riceburner.
Kid-proof tablet..
I had a Scanjet 4100C that just broke the other day...
I bought a 940c a year ago when I first moved into my dorm room, and thought it was the greatest printer ever. Thanks to this post I find out there was a recall on my power cord for it! At least they're sending them out free with no shipping costs to us. Mine should be here in two weeks at most HP says. Thanks to whoever posted this, you saved my printer!
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
Sometimes, when two trees fall in the woods at the same time, it's just a coincidence.
The fact that your and your friend's power supply units both failed at around the same time may be significant, but all evidence (eg, the lack of any similar experiences pulled up by Google, the fact that your PSUs were made by different manufacturers, and years apart too I'll bet) suggests otherwise.
If you Ask Slashdot you're bound to get one or two people with similar experiences, simply because so many people have HP deskjets and scanners - if you throw a rock into the air when your standing in a crowd then you're going to hit someone.
(Yeah, I'm really in the groove proverb-wise right now.)
If you get more than 20 then perhaps it might be time to dig even deeper but, as I said, there are so many of these PSUs out there even that number might be statistically insignificant - what's 20 when there might well be 20 million of these PSUs out there?
Talk to HP, see what they have to say. But, before you start getting heavy with them, at least find out what's wrong with your own device. You'd feel rather stupid if reinstalling the driver or replacing the parallel cable sorts out the garbage that it's currently printing.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I have been through Three HP 4200C Scanners (Bought them @ the same time, for computers in the home). ALL of them died, and in ALL it was the POWER SUPPLY. I have also seen a few others with the same problem in my work :)
They were junk when they came out back when I had a Pentium 90.
Why would you even ressurect one today?
suitable replacement for 30V HP power brick
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I agree. I have a HP 4P scanner and a HP 3P printer. Both built like tanks. Weight like one too. :)
The worst with the printer is memory (1MB) and the take-up rollers are iffy. And now when it prints there's gray streaks running the length of the paper except for the margins.
Deja Vu! ;-)
Just yesterday i repaired mine with a power supply problem. And quite a nasty problem. The metal brick the scanjet has underneath contains the main electronics PCB which has all the logic and also a second-stage power supply that generates all the regulated voltages like +5V, +12V and so on.
My brick also has +37V without load, but that's normal - it's just a transformer with a rectifier with no regulation. With the scanjet connected it's around +34V, but anyway everything is regulated so no problem with that unless it goes too high.
Anyway, the problem itself was with the PCB in the scanner, not the brick. My symptom was that the scanner sometimes turned on, sometimes it didn't, specially when moving it around. The fault: material fatigue. The trace going from the negative input from the connector got almost cut at some point. The order in the PCB is something like: negative input -> L1 (or L2, don't recall exactly) -> ferrite filter bridge -> capacitor. The cut was between the ferrite bridge and the capacitor or somewhat between that.
The fix: a simple soldered cable from the negative input on the PCB to another big ground on another part. Of course this probably renders your scanner to be non-FCC compliant or such, but anyway FCC doesn't matter here in Argentina
Works... but i wonder how long it'll last until another trace is cut...