Good tip for the Lexmark All-in-one inkjet printer owners (mine is the X6170):
After some months of use, your printer might get the habit of stopping in the middle of a page and showing “Hardware Error 0502” on the LCD display. If you leave the printer alone for a while, it might start printing again. Then again, it might not. Pretty annoying.
The Lexmark support site will let you power off, remove the power cord for 30 seconds (!!), take out the cartridges and fiddle with some encoder strip. This whole procedure might take you up to 30 minutes and it will not help (been there, done that).
The real answer is given by a person called ‘clem’:
Hardware Error: 0502.
On the multi function machine seems to be a coating on the metal rod that the cartridges travel on. Just wipe this rod with a kleenex and the problem seems to go away. Somehow it presents a drag on the cartridges and causes an error.
Clem
(from fixyourownprinter.com)
This works! Clean the sucker with a paper towel (another page talks about re-lubricating the thing, but that was not necessary in my case). The towel will be black (ink residu, presumably), but there you go printing to your heart’s desire again.
A big thank-you to Clem, Google and the wisdom of crowds!
UPDATE: also seems to work for some Dell printers (some of them are manufactured by Lexmark)
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It works..just clean, clean, clean…Thank you
Thank you, thank you, thank you. The paper towel trick worked for the error 0502 on my Lexmark.
Yep, worked great. Thanks !
This is SIMPLY amazing!! It really does work and it only takes 5 seconds to clean. Many thanks for the awesome tip.
Clem thank thank very much over a year i had this problem i just bought a printer but this was just a life saver i got so much of ink for this printer and could not used it on no other printer mine is a A960
I was going to get rid of the all in one, I love this machine
and was not looking foward to doing so!
Cleaning it works, my hat off to you Sir!
MR
It Works Thank you, Thank you
____THIS WORKED YOU’VE SAVED ME A LOT OF MONEY.
YOU DO A GOOD SERVICE TO SOCIETY FOR DOING THIS.
This worked!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
This save us from getting a new one! How simple. Thank you!!
Thanks so much – I was having so much trouble with this until I saw your site and tried it and it was fixed in minutes. Really appreciate the tip – it was a great help.
In addition to cleaning the rod on which ink cartridges travel on, I had to clean the sensor cable (flat plastic cable that runs less than an inch above the metal rod and looks like as though it runs through cartridges) with a tissue. That did the trick.
It works U da man
Works Great, but we have another printer not a lexmark just in case thanks
Mine’s a Dell (but made by Lexmark). I had this problem over a year ago and was lucky enough to stumble upon the original comment thread here; following these instructions instantly fixed the problem. The printer just started up again with the “hardware error 0502″; good thing I’d bookmarked this site! I just cleaned the rod once again and am optimistic that I’ll be okay for another year or so. Thanks once more! And, Clem, whoever you are, your name will live on as legend.
Thnx Clem, cheapest fix in the universe.
While cleaning the bar, which was black with residue, I moved the cartridge carrier and that screwed it up because now it doesn’t go back where it should be and still says Hardware error 0502. Do you have any thoughts on what I could do? and Thanks for the cleaning tip, regardless. milly
This really works! That was quick and easy, thank you!
Thanks for this It alwasys work everytime I get the 0502 thing! Thanks
Have had the all in one for several years. Waz going to get rid of it because have gotten the Hardware error 0502 message off and on for the past year. But this tip REALLY worked.
Thanks so much…YOU DA MAN!!!