HP26500 - warrior media jam, advice?

[MikePro]

always have an issue loading clear media. pinch rollers always find a way to catch the sticky-side and start peeling the material from the backing, which I've caught before & stopped the printer from loading.
BUT
this time, during the media feed calibration, vinyl got caught-up in the rollers & fed backwards into the printer, jammed, and after removing the media it left a 12"x54" strip of clear vinyl INSIDE of the machine and I cannot get it out!!!!

now the vinyl is just barely sticking out (and stuck-on) to the pinch rollers and barely dangling out the bottom where the media feeds-in.
are there any advanced-topics for substrate jam removal that I should be looking into?
pics attached, for reference, but it ain't pretty

 

[MikePro]

awesome, managed to get most of it out but there's definitely a chunk still stuck to the backside of the loading-side and my fingers are too fat to get in and peel it out.
...which is why I'm still getting errors from the machine telling me that the media is loaded incorrectly... without any media being loaded!

any tips out there to get inside this beast and clean out this mess?

 

[P Wagner]

It is difficult to visualize where the jam is, based on your description, but if it helps, you can easily remove the ribbed black roller to gain better access to the area where the media enters the media path (see crude attachment for which roller I am referring to).

At the left side of the printer (control panel side) just in front of the roller you will see a small lever in the vertical (up and down) position. Flip this to horizontal, and you should be able to gently move the roller forward on the left side of the printer. Once it is clear of the housing, you should be able to pull it off the pin at the right side of the printer, and set it aside. Hopefully that gives you more access to the media jam. After the jam is cleared, put it back in place in the inverse order.

Just be gentle, as some of the parts inside of the roller are plastic and can snap if you force it when removing it - don't ask me how I learned this...hope this helps.

 

[BIG EASY DOES IT]

You just have to remove panels. I can send you a tech manual. That HP uses to fix that machine. It will tell you how to remove and put together everything on the machine.

 

[MikePro]

thanks guys! yeah, this is beyond simply pulling vinyl out of the machine anymore... it is applied & torn/webbed all over the media feed channel/intake-tray and most likely applied over the top of whatever sensor that detects media as you feed it in.
taking it apart wouldn't be the worth thing in the world. a PITA, i'm sure, but its the only option I have for a quick turn-around.

 

[MikePro]

$350 to simply show-up and +$700 just to get them in before the 4th of July.... and $175/hr after that.
guess that means I'm putting on my service-tech pants and gettin' it done myself! wish me luck!

 

[MikePro]

found the gremlin, and am currently throttling its neck!
tore up the machine a bit to get the "Center Guide" out & cleaned-up, along with the Media Sensor who's lever was stuck in the "ON" (or media-in) position thanks to the vinyl plastered all-over it.

now for the fun-part. ....putting it back together!

 

[BIG EASY DOES IT]

found the gremlin, and am currently throttling its neck!
tore up the machine a bit to get the "Center Guide" out & cleaned-up, along with the Media Sensor who's lever was stuck in the "ON" (or media-in) position thanks to the vinyl plastered all-over it.

now for the fun-part. ....putting it back together!

Not to bad when you know what to take apart right. Hope everything works out.

 

[Bly]

I sometimes miss the feed simplicity of our old Rolands.

 

[neil_se]

Damn, what a mess! The only vinyl I have problems with is Avery 1005, the pinch rollers always want to peel back the vinyl. I have to remember to lift the blue handle as soon as the sensor in the chute detects it being loaded (or just do a manual load).

 

[MikePro]

yeah I do that too. this mess came during the process of scanning the media and all the forward-back motions involved.

 

[P Wagner]

How difficult was it to get the machine apart and then reassembled?

 

[MikePro]

Fairly simple, given my process of labeling/bagging/organizing everything along the way. The service manual was pretty good about breaking the machine-down into chapters, each chapter having it's own ordered steps of parts requiring removal: covers,panels,display,service station, scan motor, ink supply, primer valves, electronics module, input/output rollers, curing unit, output platen, media sensor, and finally center guide. So I just printed myself an organized pamphet and just read it backwards for reassembly.
I managed to skip a few steps as well, such as removing the ink supply station without actually disconnecting any of the lines by using bungee cords to hang the entire apparatus from a basket on the side of the left leg of the printer.
The hardest part was remembering how/where all the electrical connections connected to the boards, about 40 in total, as they all had to come out as well. I simply plotted a bunch of 1/8" decals, that I had pre-penplotted with #'s, to label each wire with it's corresponding port that I had also labeled.

one-evening of reviewing the manual, and about 3hrs of disassembly followed by 4-5hours of re-assembly/test printing. I had to do a LOT of printhead cleaning afterwards to get it back o 100%, as the carriage had to sit away from the service station for the entire time.
....and I still managed to find myself with one-extra screw, but I'm certain(fingers-crossed) it's just from one of the plastic covers that had two other screws holding it on