L25500 Carriage lube issues daily...help!

[Doc Zoom]

So this printer is kicking my butt! Getting carriage lube issues like everyone else. Did the firmware update, replaced the belt and tensioner and even the carriage bushings and felts. I need to clean and lubricate before every big print run or the printer binds up and botches the job. I have tried the factory lube, wd40 and many others to no avail. The shaft seems to get coated with black ink after every big print run as when we clean it with alcohol the wipe comes out cover black in ink.
You can move the carriage and it is really stiff until we clean it and re-lube it, then it moves smoothly like it should.
Is it possible we have a leak somewhere? A tube spraying black ink on the rail? This is just baffling and I'm ready to ditch this thing and get a new one. It has only 300,000 cycles and they're supposed to be good for 3 million!
Anyone else had similar issues or a fix?
Thanks!
Greg

 

[Snydo]

I had similar issues years ago, per HP tech over the phone I thoroughly cleaned the rail then completely saturate with lube in a solid squiggly S(sideways s) pattern all the way down the rail. Just enough so that it doesn't run. So about 100 times more than the user manual suggests. Went from sounding like it was dragging a cinder block to perfect immediately. I use a $20 bottle of high quality sewing machine oil that can be found at most hardware/hobby stores. Good Luck.

 

[P Wagner]

A couple of thoughts...

1. I would not use WD40 or anything similar to lube the rail. use the lubricant that comes with the machine. There have been several threads posted recently on this.
2. Any kind of ink leak would quickly drip ink onto the prints, so that is unlikely, but I would at least remove the printheads and perform a visual inspection of the interconnect wipers to see if ink is collecting on those surfaces. If it is, that would point to a printhead problem unless the leak is in the carriage itself or the ink line that runs to the carriage. If that were the case, I would expect the machine to report a problem with the ink pressurization system.
3. On the L25500, as I recall, there is no active aerosol collection to suck up airborne ink inside the printer, so it is important that the ink funnel and hoses are not blocked or otherwise obstructed.
4. I have never heard of the rail getting dirty in a matter of hours or even days after it has been properly cleaned and re-oiled. It normally takes a number of months for that message to re-occur.
5. There are some training digital video tutorials on cleaning and oiling the rail for the L25 and L26 on the HP Support Advanced YouTube Channel.

 

[Typestries]

We run a small array of these. Agreed this is a design "issue" but this has ben working well for us:

Have you changed your head felts? They will get so caked that they will lock up the carriage and your belt will skip and shred.

We lube daily in the morning and if running a second lube a second time. Cut a lint free into a 1" x 1" square, add some light machine oil, wrap the cloth around the rail and rub from one side to the other. We do the bottom rail then the top. Works like a charm.

 

[Techman]

WD 40 is not a friggin lube. Never has been never will. The liquid part of wd 40 is a solvent.

Mineral oil is a light oil that works temporarily... It is Not the base for a majority of fine machine oil. It will clock and cake and stick

Sewing machine oil is petrol based and will owrk.

However those bushings are usually a sintered brass and require a unique oil if at all. Clean those bushings of any mineral oil and use what the OEM says to use.

 

[Dennis422]

Change your carriage sponges (Felts)That helped me with the issue. When I bought my used 25500, it sat in the garage for 3 weeks before I could get it in the location.
Railing got pretty dirty. Changed the felts, did not see that warning for a few months (Do not print much)
Before, I would get it every week basically.

 

[Doc Zoom]

issue

So right after I installed a new belt, tensioner, new updated bushings and felts, I cleaned and lubricated it with the oil that comes with the printer and it made it about two weeks before binding up and banging again. Might just have to make it a twice daily ritual to keep this pig running! It shouldn't be rocket science!
Thanks for your feedback!

 

[Doc Zoom]

Tensioner

So I fixed a lot of the clanging, banging problems by shimming the new tensioner. I went to the hardware store and found some nylon stepped spacers about .100 thick and installed them into the month old tensioner and now its running much better. The carriage was still really sticky until I cleaned it again. This time I used honey to lube the rails, I heard this was a more natural lubricant. I'll keep you posted.
BTW...I was joking on the honey part!

 

[Ppg2014]

Has anyone found instructions for replacing these pads. I ordered some as I cannot get the message to go away about cleaning and lubricating the rails.