Get-go, the adept news. Whatsoever day now, nosotros should receive a complimentary shipping label from HP to send our useless printer to one of their recycling centers.

That'south the full and complete extent of the good news.

This is the story of an otherwise functional HP PhotoSmart 6525 All-In-Ane Inkjet Printer that stopped printing black ink and, as a event, faces the fate of dismantling and (hopefully) reuse.

Before Our HP Printer Stopped Printing Blackness Ink

Fun Facts almost Our HP PhotoSmart 6525

  • We bought it at Costco a few years agone.
  • It required A LOT of new ink cartridges.
  • We exclusively used "genuine HP ink," until …
  • I tried to save xv% by buying Part Max / Office Depot ink.
  • The printer stopped printing black ink.

Years of Expensive Use

Yep, this printer worked fine for two or iii years. It sucked downwards a fat lot of "high yield" ink, only information technology worked well plenty.

Proof of insurance for the motorcar'south glovebox. Text and images for the science fair project. Our PhotoSmart 6525 dutifully (if expensively) handled all the basic chores we assigned information technology.

On the regular, we'd buy and drop in another set of Genuine Factory-Sealed HP Brand Cartridges.

Until …

Office Max/Office Depot Ink

With a footling more than focus on the household budget, I decided to requite some less expensive, house make ink a attempt.

Role Max/Office Depot (yes, they're the same company) takes spent HP ink cartridges and fills them up with their own ink. And they sell it adjacent against "genuine HP" cartridges at about a 15% markdown.

I tried it. Big mistake.

Minor issue: the printer immediately permit us know that danger was imminent; impure, tainted, off-brand cartridges were detected. "They have to scare u.s.a. to protect sales confronting less expensive competitors," I told myself.

Significant issue: The first 10 pages nosotros printed looked awful, and then nosotros took them back to exchange them for Genuine Factory-Sealed HP Brand Ink Cartridges.

After a little back and along, the role shop employees agreed to give united states store credit for their firm brand cartridges.

Now I'm paraphrasing here, but the shift manager at Office Max/Office Depot told us (approximately):

I hate that we sell this ink. I caution people confronting buying information technology.

I but wish she'd been on duty when we made the initial decision.

When Our HP Printer Stopped Printing Black Ink

We paid the $17 difference between the "genuine" and non-sanctioned cartridges, took the new ink dwelling, and installed the cartridges.

Printed text and images nevertheless looked bad. A little Google search produced these pace-by-stride instructions from HP.

The Impress Quality Diagnostic (below) sheets made clear what the trouble was.

HP, HP 6525, HP printer, print quality, print quality diagnostic, bad print quality, printer quality, no black ink

When we tried to print patently text documents (blackness text simply), the sheets shot out empty; this Diagnostic sheet made articulate why.

Notice that the cyan, magenta, and yellowish all look fine – press all 3 shades without whatsoever striping or streaking.

The black? Empty.

HP 6525, HP All-In-One, no black ink, print quality diagnostic, stopped printing black, not printing black

Note: The messages and boxes have a slight 3D look to them – made of the mix of colors, rather than properly printed with black ink. Again, press in black only produces empty sheets.

Non Press Black Ink: "Apparently This Is A Thing"

The heads aren't clogged. All recommended steps had been taken. No black ink.

Though I have no evidence for it, I suspect HP ready a kill switch on the blackness cartridge upon reception of any ink cartridges except "genuine HP ink" cartridges.

Either that – or information technology'southward a major firmware failure.

Either way, HP knows about it. I found several posts in their customer/production message boards. And information technology's well documented in the Amazon reviews for this product.

Amazon, Amazon reviews, customer reviews, low score, bad reviews, HP PhotoSmart, PhotoSmart 6525, All-in-One, printer reviews

Non only does this HP printer have one of the everyman set of customer reviews I've ever seen on any product (yes, that's 1.iv stars total and 78% ane star reviews), the black ink issue seems second only to how desperately it sucks through ink.

Hither are a scattering of quotes from the Amazon reviews:

  • "My black ink just stopped working all together."
  • "On my 2nd nigh new official HP Black ink cartridge the printer stopped printing in Black."
  • "Two years and the printer will not print black ink. Plain this is a thing."
  • "Now I can't get the blackness ink to impress, seems it is a mutual problem as there many complaints on the HP site."
  • "I experienced the same issue that a lot of people had when replacing the blackness ink cartridge and information technology would no longer print black."
  • "I've only used mine about ix-ten times when it simply stopped printing blackness."
  • "Much similar a lot of the reviews the blackness ink was the problem."
  • "Y'all may find that it's somehow impossible to impress black just."
  • "Streaks on the pages, jamming issues, disconnect problems … just, worst of all, afterward a year, it stopped press black ink no matter how many times I cleaned, re-aligned and bought and replaced with brand new blackness ink cartridges."
  • "Just this week I put an OEM cartridge into the printer and then Black colour was missing when I printed the quality diagnostic."
  • "This is the 2d HP printer I've owned that has stopped printing in black."
  • "Prints proficient at first, after warranty expires they quit printing black."
  • "As has been said before, the black ink but stopped printing."
  • "First fourth dimension to change cartridges and it won't print black."
  • "Less than a year old. Will not print from the black cartridge."
  • "We have had our 6525 for 26 months, the blackness just quit printing, tried everything recommended, yet won't piece of work."

What To Do with a Printer That Doesn't Impress in Blackness

After exhausting the start iv fixes on the five step listing, HP recommends getting the PhotoSmart serviced.

servicing, repair, printer repair, HP printer repair, HP customer support

Only …

out of warranty, warranty, HP warranty, printer warranty, out of service

Though they threatened a fee for the phone phone call, I chosen anyway.

After 10 minutes on hold (non bad on a Sat morn), I was connected to Christopher, a very kind and helpful gentleman in the Philippines (I asked, he shared).

He was very well aware of the black ink trouble; I felt certain right abroad that he'd spoken with many customers nigh it. A script tin only take y'all and so far – and he was well past that.

I followed all the steps through which he walked me, including wiping off the copper contacts on the cartridges and in the printer. We concluded by printing yet another no-black Printer Quality Diagnostic Canvass.

Christopher suggested that it was a "hardware issue" that couldn't exist resolved because this model doesn't take a removable printhead.

Of form, it's not a hardware result. Information technology's a software or firmware issue. Something within the printer told it to stop printing from the blackness cartridge.

I asked almost a difficult, internal reset that might make our HP PhotoSmart 6525 All-In-1 printer forget I'd ever committed the sin of placing a non-genuinine ink cartridge against its copper contacts. You lot know, Men In Blackness neuralyzer style.

No such luck.

So, I can't use it. Nor should I donate it. I hate to trash information technology. And, fortunately, Christopher had a great respond to my last question.

HP Printer Recycling – And an Insistent Sales Pitch

I asked if they could save anything from it or reuse some or all of the printer. Christopher sent me a link to transport information technology to an HP recycling center.

Though I couldn't find the HP PhotoSmart 6525 on their drib-down list of specific models, I still requested a free shipping characterization to send our perfectly-fine-except-that-it-stopped-press-black-ink printer back to them. I but picked a different model.

printer recycling, HP recycling, recycling, recycle, computer hardware

Knowing I was without a properly functioning printer, Christopher also made a difficult pitch on "upgrading" to a new or refurbished HP product. Several mentions. Polite, but very persistent.

Of course, I'd ordered a new one from a dissimilar manufacturer days earlier, and then his efforts produced no fruit.

Takeaways from the Black Ink Problem

> Personal opinion & speculation: HP seems to have created the "give away the razor, profit from the blades" dynamic with this printer and its inks. Sell the printer inexpensive at Costco, Sam's Club, and elsewhere. Make it suck downward tons of ink. Punish people for non-sanctioned ink. Design in a fixed printhead, so the printer is immediately useless.

> Instant uselessness like this is incredibly wasteful.

> Recycling helps call up value from an otherwise useless printer similar ours. A cradle-to-cradle arroyo in manufacturing is even better.

> Both HP and Office Max/Office Depot are knowingly putting their should-be-valued team members in bad situations. Three team members at the Office shop endured unpleasant exchanges with me because of bad products, as did the kind gentleman overseas for HP. And they're obviously not lone. Those one-star Amazon reviews engagement dorsum to March 2022. Employees are at the front end of the service turn a profit chain.

> Look at Amazon reviews earlier buying anything. Even at Costco.

> I aspire never to purchase some other HP production.

[UPDATE: March 2022]

Thanks to Michael, who commented below, for offering this potential fix:

I had this exact same problem and just fixed it past reconfiguring to the default settings. I went to Applications on my Mac, clicked on Hewlett-Packard, so clicked on Setup Banana, accepted the user agreement and kept clicking continue until the setup was done. IT PRINTS IN Black AGAIN!

And another recommendation made in the comments is this video.

My HP printer is LONG GONE, so I can't test it myself. You, even so, might give it a endeavour for yourself!

hp printer, HP 6525, HP All-In-One, Hewlett Packard, black ink, defective, problem