Technical information

168

-Thank you

HP 940/88 - PRINT QUALITY / POOR PRINTING / FADED TEXT / MISSING COLORS

Regarding your recent inquiry about the HP 940/88 cartridge print quality problems, let's first make sure

that the printer is firing all 4 tanks correctly. Based on your problem description, it sounds like there is

an air bubble in one of the printer ink lines, so you should perform a "Clean PrintHead" procedure fro m

your printer control panel.

NOTE: If one or more the colors were previously dry fired during printing ( i.e. if you continued printing

using only a few colors to one, air may have been accidently ingested into the ink lines between the

cartridge(s) and PRINTHEAD. To recover from this problem, you may have to run the "Clean Printhead"

procedure 2-3 times.

Then to verify the lines are clear and working correctly, print the “INK RECOVERY TEST PRINT” from our

Test Prints page: http://inkjet411.com/?page_id=146

Then we suggest you run the self-test print (under maintenance/tools menu), this will verify nozzle

performance and that each color is firing a solid band of color.

We also suggest that you thoroughly review the steps outlined on our support page, including printhead

removal/printer cleaning and service station cleaning. It is suggested you refer to printer manufacturer

instructions first as the Inkjet411 procedures are provided for general guidance purposes only. A dirty

service station can cause poor image quality and/or ink cross-contamination between different colors.

http://inkjet411.com/?page_id=1457 (940 main page)

http://inkjet411.com/?page_id=973 (88 main page)

If this still does not address the problem, we suggest you return the cartridges to the Costco Photo

Department to get them weighed to ensure that were properly filled.

If this does not remedy the problem, then you may have a defective print head in the printer (worst case

scenario), unrelated to the refilled cartridges. This electronic assembly (either the Yellow/Black

printhead or Cyan/Magenta printhead, depending on which color is providing the issue) is available from

HP.com.

NOTE: The HP 88 printer models have two (2) electronic printheads (responsible for pulling ink from the

ink cartridges and then firing the ink droplets onto the paper). One for Yellow/Black colors, the other for

Cyan/Magenta colors. Either will eventually fail depending on print usage type and printer duty cycle

(i.e. rated for ~41,500 printed pages). Here is a video on how the PRINTHEAD(S) function in the printer:

http://inkjet411.com/?page_id=2054

NOTE: The HP 940 printer models have two (2) electronic printheads (responsible for pulling ink from

the ink cartridges and then firing the ink droplets onto the paper). One for Yellow/Black colors, the other