4550- Drawer One latch broken- need to open please 1

[nicksims]

A small black piece of plastic has broken off of the handle of drawer one. It is far enough inside where I cannot reach with my fingers or tweezers right now (at least with any dexterity). It seems to be the "trigger" piece that connects the grey handle to the mechanism that finally allow the drawer to open. Anyway...

How can I get around this handle to open Drawer 1?

Did I miss the correct diagram on the HP website? I could not find one that would help me here.

Thank you.
Nick.

 

[dpbroda]

The black handle conects to a metal bar, if you can reach the bar you can move it and release the latch and it will allow you to open the door. I have experienced this problem before but do not have a printer in fornt of me, so I am sorry that I can not be more exact. You may have to break off the handle completly.

Donald Broda
Vice President

http://www.brtoner.com

 

[nicksims]

Donald,
Between this and a little more digging I got inside and fixed it.

For the next unlucky soul to break the handle, here is a solution to open the drawer and an ugly repair solution...

- Open the top drawer (drum drawer). Remove drum and keep hidden from the light! (At least that is what all the other warning always say.)
- Remove tray 2.
- Open and remove the back panel. At the top corner, near the left panel you are trying to remove, is a screw for the top panel. Remove it.
- Press the button to open the access door to the toner cartridges and leave this open.
- At the bottom of the left panel are two screws. Remove.
- With these steps and the top drawer open, it is easier to shimmy off the side panel. There are a couple of "latches" that may need a little careful prying with a flathead screwdriver.

Once the panel was off, I could just barely see the thick black plastic drawer release. I was just able to get my finger inside to hit this trigger. Voila!

Since this isn't the average part someone can buy, here is the "el cheapo" repair to get it working so when needed, you can open the drawer again. (I have plenty of paper jams so I can't take this apart all the time.)

Get some reasonably thick wire that is both stiff and maleable. A good 12" length should do.

While Drawer 1 is open, hit the black plastic trigger so you can see the metal bar that runs from side to side. (Now in my case, the handle you would actually use is the broken piece so it slides a little out of the way. I didn't have the guts to try to break and remove it for fear of my breaking something else.)

From underneath, you can thread the wire around this metal bar and back to the outside. (Long tweezers, patience and a little swearing may help during this phase).

Tie it securely around the metal bar and leave enough so you have a loop that you can grab. When drawers 1 and 2 are closed, you should be able to see the wire loop sticking out. When you pull on this, you're grabbing the metal release bar. Also, don't just pull hard on the wire. It is more of a jiggle and pull.

It is definitely not pretty, but it works and you can open the door without affecting drawer 2.

Hope this helps anybody else who gets the sinking feeling that they won't be able to open the drawer.

Nick