Need to order part by tomorrow. My free printer does not owrk. Power supply?

Oct 11, 2025 Last reply: 7 months ago 4 Replies
M

This afternoon I found a printer waiting for the trashman. And a good friend needs a printer, at least he did recently. Kismet.



Nothing happens when I press the On/off button,



But in the back, the little green LED is lit up when it's plugged in, not flickering and not dimming.



I've done what iiuc is a hard reset: Unplugged, hold down the On button for 30 seconds. No change.


1) Easy to detach the power supply, It shows various voltages, from 6 to 19 with several others in between, but they only show for a second or so. Then the meter drops to zero.


2) OTOH, when using the AC scale, it shows 46VAC consistently, no going on and off.



Were it not for point 2, I would say that I think I remember that this is a popular symptom, right? representing a common problem, right?



But because if of point 2, I'm not so sure.



But still I think: In short, the power supply, the brick, is no good, right? ???? Even though the LED does not dim or flicker. ????


Power supply is HP F5S43-60001 Supposed to put out 22V DC up to 455ma. I think HP sells it for about $40 and but ebay has 54 listings for $10, all in China, and 3 listings in the USA for 27 or 20. Probably going to visit him next Sunday so shipping from China would take too long.

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Printer is HP Office Jet 3830 All-in-one, plus it's wireless, and has a document feeder, but weighs only 12 pounds. Uses a tri-color cartridge and ink might be expensive, but I don't think my friend prints a lot. (Currently he sends stuff to be printed to his daughter-in-law who lives nearby, and someone there prints it for him.)
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He used to have all this stuff but a house fire melted his computer, and melted the backup drive that was next to it!!



Amazon has the printer renewed for $249 and "in New condition" for $176 more than that. That's how they put it. Comes to $425.


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J

This might help:

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M

Thanks. I tried everything suggested but nothing helped.

I also disconnected power supply before measuring the voltage, and, more importantly, I used the 200v range instead of 20, and the voltage was

21,5 and very stable. I think that's close enough to 22 that that is not the problem.

I wonder about the suggestion to remove the cartridges and see if starts then. Hard to believe that could help. The thing seems to have been made in 2016, but the cartridges don't expire until the end of this month and the end of next month.

I'm going to google some mroe but I may be out of ideas. I don't even know where the rest of circuitry is, and I dont' see screws to remove.

Other people have complained about the same symptoms.

It's out of production, but Amazon has reconditioned and like new (for

425). It's a very nice machine. It's small, only 12 pounds, and does everything, copy, scan, print, fax, except for automatic 2-sided printing (which I think is great, and wouldn't want to do without.)
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M

I see there is more to do in your link. I'll see if I can use that to find the problem. I've got until next sunday morning to fix it or die trying.

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M

None of that other stuff fixed it either. It was nice, very compact, did everything, but it was in the trash for a reason!

The same guy threw away a narrow monitor a few years ago and that worked fine. I use it for testing, and when I have to carry one somewhere. But easy come, easy go on this printer.

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