[Proposal] BobRoss needs a new transfer kit 05/24/2022

[Cprossu]

Hello everyone! It's time to pay the piper. We've enjoyed having an enterprise grade laser printer capable of high speed as well as printing on tabloid paper (11x17) since 2017.

We've managed to push somewhere around 11.5k pages of letter through it and around 1000 pages of tabloid, not bad!

HP does not have a replacement for our model (HP CP5525DN), they make a model that only does letter and has a reduced monthly capacity, and they offer one that's the size of a copier (with a price to match it's size), and for people wanting what we have they only offer refurbished examples of the same model (2k without toner(!))

We ran out of the partial toners we got with the printer, and Darrel Wertz was able to score us a complete set for amazingly cheap, and they all worked!!!

Details about our machine are up at
https://wiki.heatsynclabs.org/wiki/Hewlett_Packard_CP5525DN(BobRoss)

Some of you may have noticed banding on the sides of your printed paper, and what we require now to get this thing back into tip top shape is a new transfer belt. Although the kit we have still has 20% life in it, it's my belief ours developed a worn out wiper blade on the belt assembly. While the wiper blade itself can be sourced on ebay between $12-$20, actually installing it is beyond my skills. I attempted to remove the blade from our second ruined (in the move) transfer belt I sourced from the other parts printer we had on that tear-apart night back in 2017,  but it proved to be way too difficult for me to get it apart and back together again, so it's not viable unless this is a thing you know how to do properly.

It makes a huge mess, is totally not fun, and it will not replace/refresh the other parts of the printer or transfer belt that will need attention. This machine has the equivalent of 170,000 a4 pages on it, but it's engineered to hold up to say 30,000 pages a month. I did not keep track of what components came from what printer, just that this one was the less used of the two and made a good platform. I know this may be a shock to some of you, but sometimes I run into stuff that I can't fix or feel confident enough about the attempted fix being reliable(!) I took a picture and attached it here so you can see what I mean. If you have the skill set, or have someone familiar with these printers, I'd be willing to give it a go, but there's only one chance to get it right I think now. Nothing will be hurt by running the printer this way, but your documents will get more degraded with more lines and bands as time goes on unless it's replaced.

It's given us amazing reliability and for the most part has just needed paper and electricity, it is of my opinion that there are still many years of service left in this machine, and the price for the transfer belt refresh kit is not excessive for how much use we've already gotten out of it, and should last us the rest of the printer's usable life at our space.

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-laserjet-ce516a-transfer-kit

$318 plus shipping gets us the real deal from HP with a warranty plus it comes with new paper feed rollers and other wear items that need to be replaced as well. It should be good for 150k pages from the time of install, so pretty much for us until the end of time.

That's all I have for you, thank you BobRoss for your years of awesome printing services for the lab.

[Rafael]

I don't know anybody who can help us with this, nor I can do it my self, but it brought back some memories.

My mom used to work in a place where people went to have their house deed paperwork done and stuff of the sort and they had two huge printers, Xerox.

I just remembered the ton of time the repair people would spend changing parts (and I spent most of it watching them 😆), I was like 10yo.

Anyway, I totally understand the complexity these amazing things could have and even to some extent how messy it could get.

Thank you for sharing such detail.

Hopefully we can find someone to help us out with it.

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[Cprossu]

To be honest, some things are just worth buying, in my opinion this falls under that category.

[Eric Ose]

Cpro,

What is the max budget of the proposal? $318 plus shipping... maybe saying up to a certain amount would be best.

I'm in favor of this proposal. I have made donations to the lab for printing things. I know some other people have as well.

-Eric Ose

Robot Ambassador

Southwest Maker Fest President

HeatSync Labs Volunteer

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[Rick Blake]

I agree with Cpro's assessment. My experience with these printers leads me to recommend replacing the unit. We should keep the parts and take time, if we find the skills, to rebuild that and have a spare, but these are long-lived components, and the value is marginal. 

I would support this proposal

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[Cprossu]

I amend this proposal:

The transfer belt kit should cost no more than $420 shipped with taxes based on current 'worst case' ebay rates. Hopefully inflation doesn't come into play before we can snag one..

Also this is NOT for tomorrows HYH, but for Thursday, June 9th, 2022 just to avoid any confusion.

[Cprossu]

It has been pointed out to me that HP is out of stock currently for that transfer kit, so I figure Walmart could be an acceptable alternative source (and is cheaper)

https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-LaserJet-CE516A-Transfer-Kit-150-000-pages-CE516A/43320560

I'd like to avoid Amazon due to the raw amount of counterfeit products and specifically counterfeit and previously used printer products sold as new/genuine

[dlwe...@gmail.com]

Love having this resource in the lab. It's used for a lot if things around the lab. I've printed equipment manuals, training documents, liability waivers, print and cut sticker paper, tent sign inserts for hsl events and tabloid sized engineering drawings just to name a few. 

Please show up at HYH 6/9/22 and vote for this important proposal!! Regretfully, I will be out of town but this workhorse has been very valuable and convenient to complete projects that require printing in the lab. 

[Nate Caine]

On the SPARE transfer belt (shown in photo):  

How did it get damaged?  

(That's really sad to have been mistreated that way.)

On the currently INSTALLED transfer belt (in the printer):  

How did it get scuffed / damaged along the edge?  (machine failure?  paper jam?  user abuse?  etc.)

Are we certain that the cause of the damage has been remediated / removed / repaired?

(I'd hate to spend this much money on a new belt, only to have it suffer the same fate.)

What is the revised cost for this proposal?

[Cprossu]

1) The spare belt got damaged in the move. Not much I can do, should have packed it better. Truthfully it had problems anyway

2) Roughly 40% of the currently installed belt was used up prior to us getting it, and I am fairly certain it was on it's way out when we had it. The wiper degrading due to age and use of one paper size for most of it's life is likely the reason it was more worn in a specific edge than another.

3) We're still going for $420 max shipped, even if it takes a bit for them to become in stock again at various places. This is not a time sensitive issue.

To your note about the money spent on a new belt, my opinion is that cost is easily dwarfed by what the cost of new toner cartridges would be, and at least at the time of not having a supply chain issue, equivalent to just ONE of the color toners. Since we have a set of brand new toners installed, they function as intended, and their cost was amazingly minimal (Thanks Darrell!), and there's no getting a printer (new in known condition or used in unknown condition) with the same capabilities this one has for anywhere near this sort of money, plus this will replace some of the other parts that could have led to the demise of the previous transfer belt, while it is a gamble, I feel it's a rather safe one to make since we know this machine so well and for the time it's been with us, have been able to control it. I hope that clears up why I'd want the community to invest into this asset. If it should fail down the road, I can look into other options with our partners, do some leg work to get parts for whatever we end up with, but I'd rather it be the devil I know at this point to save on the time I put into the project to keep us printing in 2d!

[Cprossu]

The transfer kit was back in stock at HP, and has been ordered (Thanks Darrell!)
The total cost was  342.79 after taxes and it had free shipping.

[Cprossu]

Transfer kit installed 7/19/2022 with one complication on the Tray 2 feed roller sprag assembly. Please let me know if you run into any paper jams or other weirdness when printing from tray 2, my temporary (and maybe permanent) solution was to remove the part causing the hang-up.

https://groups.google.com/g/heatsynclabs/c/NGmqq6VI3Ho/m/x2QR5dWkAAAJ Link to groups post. Let me know any questions/concerns.