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OK, follow me on this one. We bought a couple of XL 8000's over a year ago. So far both have required the intermediate rollers because the original rollers defective, replaced at our cost. Half size prints jammed frequently from the start so HP's fix for that was a firmware release that slowed down the printer to reduce the jams. Now HP wants us to fork over $999 for a kit that replaces the loop fingers with a different design. They are calling the kit an enhancement to the PageWide so they can bill for a feature that we've already paid for at purchase and they took it away (half size speed). By the way, current production PageWides have the enhancement installed no added cost. Anyone besides me feel HP is sticking it to customers that were early adopters of their product????

Hmm......we, along with our dealer were insistent with HP that the redesigned loop fingers should be provided at no cost since it was obviously a design issue that they redesigned and they did so.

So, I would say, be polite, but firm that you feel they should provide these free of charge and they should do so, don't just accept their first answer.

As far as jamming, here are a few additional causes and solutions that we have found:
Paper Matters - We had several rolls from our KIP 8000 and the way they were at the end of the rolls meant that if we didn't specify a length of the roll when putting them in, the plotter would jam when it got close to the end of the roll, this meant there would end up being as much as 3-5 feet left on the end of each roll. We have switched to the HP paper that claims it reduces ink usage and while the paper is slightly more expensive, it does reduce ink consumption to a point that actually does more than offsets the higher cost of paper and eliminates the end of roll problem we were experiencing.

Carpet Installs - We have carpet on our floors, it is commercial carpet, so it doesn't have much cushion to it. That being said, we found that the plotter sinks into the carpet faster than the stacker making them just slightly misaligned and causes jams, especially on smaller prints. Our dealer ended up putting a thick piece of plywood under the entire machine and that helped a lot.

Short Prints - We have learned that any prints shorter than 24" (HP says 17" should be ok, but find that is not the case) will not stack properly on the stacker and must be sent to the basket.

Jams - If one print jams, remove all prints currently in the stacker before clearing the jam to prevent additional jams.

We have followed these tips and have almost eliminated paper jams completely, obviously there will always be the occasion where it happens, but this has minimized them.

Good information, thanx!

Update-we now have a third 8000. The new printer was represented to be the latest and greatest, it wasn't. No small sheet update installed or provided. To the dealers credit, we received 3 update kits at no cost to us. The kits have been installed and seem to be running problem free.

Mark

When was the roller problem discovered? I think I am due an update kit also.

Missed this one. Only took about 6 months for the rollers to fail. The new rollers are running without issue so far.