Everyone with 'ERROR 502'

Question

My first mistake was buying a DELL A940 printer. My second mistake was not trashing it sooner. Evidently 'support' has never actually worked on an A940/960 or possibly some A940's are made different than my A940. All 2 things support can do is ...ignore your post or refer you to instructions that are wrong and/or useless. This is why I ripped support in previous (deleted by DELL) posts. The 'encoder strip' does NOT slip into a slot at all on the A940 I gave to the trash collector. The only way for the strip to come out of the back of the cartridge is if the strip has come completely off one or both end connections and was pulled out of the opening that it goes through. Yes, it feeds through an opening NOT slides into a slot. My A940 never function consistently(only intermittently at best by cleaning the strip every time I printed). When I discovered Dell's ink cartridges are proprietary (ONLY place cartridges are available is ...you guessed it, DELL. That was the last straw. I tossed the A940 and purchased a good printer. Save yourself alot of aggravation ...get rid of it before it drives you nuts.

william_the_sco · Answer

My Dell printer has printed over 25,000 pages and hundreds of 8x10 color photographs over the past 13 months. It has printed perfectly the entire time without one single problem. If this one ever dies, I will gladly buy another one without complaint.

error502 · Answer

Thanks for the report william but how does that help the many with printers that continuously "error 502"?

There are several current posts but if you could access ALL the previous (deleted) posts concerning "error 502" ...you would be enlightened.

Message Edited by error502 on 03-23-2006 09:38 AM

amwomwh · Answer

I have had this problem with my A960 for almost a year now. When it first occurred I called support and they instructed me to 'replace' the strip. It was never out of place. Dell then shipped us out a replacement printer and we sent back the one we were using. Problem solved, right? No, within 4 or 5 months, our replacement printer began having the same problem with the 'Hardware Error 502' message popping up when we tried printing. The message would occur whenever we tried printing numerous pages (60-70) at a time. Now it occurs every time I try printing. Sometimes I can print 10 pages, sometimes only 3, and sometimes I can only print 1/2 a page before the error message appears. I usually have to restart the printer after every page I print. This is extremely frustrating, especially since we use our printer for business. If our service contract hadn't run out, I'm sure Dell would send me a replacement like they did before. However, our service contract expired and since the boss chose not to extend it, I'm pretty much on my own.

pops shop · Answer

We were having the same problems with our 960 printer. It would print less than a half page and throw the 502 error. I

pops shop · Answer

We had the same problem with our 960. Half page or less and then error 502. I took it apart and cleaned the strip (it gets smudged), re-lubed the guide rail and have not had further problems.

Also, the strip in the 960 printer can not get off its track as it enclosed in its reader. Just cleaning it with a glasses cleaner has resulted in much better operation (so far.)

Message Edited by pops shop on 02-25-2007 07:07 PM

william_the_sco · Answer

It is almost another year since I replied to this message. I have now printed over 50,000 pages with my 922 without a single error or problem. I am considering retiring the printer and placing it in a glass enclosure with gold trim. But it works so well that I will continue to use it until it stops. The trouble is that I am afraid I will expire before the printer. I also work a Large University with over 1000 Dell units. We hardly ever have a problem except when a student spills or drops something in or they try to make it do something that it was never designed to do like run on their Mactop. If I ever need another printer I will certainly buy a Dell. For every complaint that you see on this forum, there are about a million Dells out ther running perfectly.

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