I recently acquired an old HP Designjet 500 printer -- the 24inch version. I suspect that it had not been used much as the ink cartridges were full (although expired 10 years ago) and the printheads had less than 5cc of ink through them.
First, I replaced the ink cartridges with new ones (not HP). Compatible ones are dirt cheap on eBay. With new ink, I turned the printer on again, hoping for good news.
The carriage belt began to spit out little bits of decaying rubber, so another trip to eBay to get a replacement belt. This takes time to ship from China.
Replacing the carriage belt involves taking most of the printer to pieces. Nearly all the screws have T15 Torx heads. Except 1. This is either a T9 or a T8 depending on where you looked. My local Ace hardware doesn't stock anything smaller than a T10. Lowes' website is completely useless and has no search results for Torx T9. Home Depot's is not much better, but eventually reveals that they have them.
At this point, life intervenes and I realize that I'm not going to get to HD any time soon. So I resort to Amazon -- where their search engine reveals that somebody sells the Home Depot own branded kits which include T5, T6, T7, T8, T9 and T10. This makes me go and look in my pile of small tools. I find an unopened kit from Lowes which includes about 25 different small bits -- including the T9.
With the T9 in hand, I can finish the disassembly. Reassembly was simple -- until I found a piece of plastic left over at the end! I managed to fit it back in....
The moment of truth -- the printer powers up, runs the self-test. When I try and align the printheads, it fails after printing a very weak test pattern.
Now I've ordered a set of four printheads (from Hong Kong) and I'll see if everything starts to work when they arrive.
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