HP 1055CM+ sleep cycle

[Big Al]

We carry a stock of wide-format printers to support our operations. We keep the HP 4000 units plugged in and turned on during storage so the printer will wake up every eight hours and cycle the heads to keep them from clogging up. We go out to the storage area every two weeks and make the printer print something.

Now they want to keep an older 1055 on hand just in case we run out of the newer plotters.

When we stored the HP 1055's we just left them turned off and had few problems with heads since these have much larger ink orifices than the newer printers. My question is this: does the 1055 series wake up periodically and clean the heads? I cannot find anything on the HP web site about this.

Thanks,
Al

[cs_peter]

I know that it has "self-cleaning printheads." So that should mean that it cleans itself periodically. Now whether that means per pages printed or per days inactive, I'm not sure.

[Big Al]

Thanks! It does clean the heads before every print job. The HP4000 has the wakeup every eight hours to clean the heads, spray some ink, clean the heads and put them back into their stow cups. The 4000 has tiny orifices that will clog up quickly. The 1055's have been stored long periods then when powered up would somehow know the black heads were a little clogged and do a head recovery cycle and then usually we were good to go. Sometimes have to change a black head. The black ink has particles in it so it is the most likely to clog. Since this is a backup unit it may be a long time, if ever, before it is used. I guess the best thing would be to print something on it every month?

Al

[cs_peter]

Yeah, high quality black ink usually coagulates more than other colours. I know it's something I have to look out for on my fountain pens. If you have them connected to a network, you could probably schedule a task to send them print jobs every month.

[Big Al]

Thanks Peter. We are working on setting that up right now.

Al