Damnit, modern bargain hardware. When our previous Canon s450 died and we went to the shop to get a heir for it, we were surprised by the low prices of consumer printers/scanners. So Ingrid and I went for a HP Photosmart C4780 printer/scanner (C4700 series). It is a nice wifi-enabled printer/scanner.
And today I had to print a contract and scan it and the damn thing did not suck the paper in. “Kein Papier mehr” – “No paper”. Googling for the problem did not give an answer so I humbled myself calling the HP hotline for Austria. After 5 minutes of “whats the serial number, whats my name, whats my phone number, here is your HP customer number” the answer was: it seems the thing is older than a year, if not, scan the invoice and do this and that to talk to a technician OR pay 20 EUR credit card to talk to a technician”.
OK, if the internet does not know it, HP seems also not to know. But I found notice that the “papierwalze” could be not “rauh” enough, meaning that a roller has not enough friction to suck in the paper. The printer did rattle and chunkle as usual when I pressed “print”, so that was a good lead. I opened the back and saw a small wheel touching down on the paper. When I put my finger on it, the paper suckin-process worked.
So I made my printer suck … paper by sticking a cardboard clip on the roller. If the printer wants to suck in paper, a gentle pull on this clip will help. Only trouble is: you have to press “OK” and pull at the same time for every page.
In German for other helpless googlers:
Wenn dein HP Photosmart C4780 “Kein Papier mehr” anzeigt, obwohl da Papier drin ist, dann kann das daran liegen dass die Papierwalze nicht rauh genug ist oder das sie nicht genug Druck auf dem Papier hat um es einzuziehen. Mit “Papierwalze” meine ich jetzt das kleine schwarze Rädchen was etwa 3cm von Rechten Rand weg am Papier liegt. Dann einen Kartonstreifen mit doppelseitigem Klebeband auf die Unterseite der Papierwalze kleben – wenn man an dem Karton zieht und gleichzeitig “OK” bei der Fehlermeldung drückt, druckt er wieder.
Its not pretty, but my printer sucks now again…the paper.