Who will repair your HP DesignJet 500 when it goes down?

ericjgough • September 10, 2015

Do you have an HP DesignJet 500 plotter? Did you know that HP has made this plotter an end-of-life (EOL) product? What does this mean to you? What it means to you is that your plotter may go down and you’ll be up the creek without a paddle. The HP DesignJet 500 plotter is one of the most popular plotters and many companies are being affected by its end-of-life.

Right now it is getting harder and harder to find parts for the HP DesignJet plotter. An end-of life product means that the manufacturer isn’t making parts, such as the carriage assembly, carriage belt, motor, service station, encoder, trailing cable, ink tubes, cutter assembly and many other parts for it anymore. This means that many service companies have limited parts and may not provide time and material on-site repair any longer.

So what will you do if your HP DesignJet 500 plotter goes down? When your HP DesignJet plotter does go down, you will only have one choice of repair – time and material service call. Service companies will not offer a service maintenance plan on a product that isn’t currently operational. So your HP DesignJet 500 plotter is like a ticking time bomb. Sure it’s operational right now, but when it does go down, you’ll be out of luck.

To avoid being stuck with an HP DesignJet 500 plotter that could make a great paper weight, you should find a reputable service company that has annual maintenance plans. Many service companies are keeping their HP DesignJet 500 plotter parts for their customers that have an annual maintenance plan with them.

So what can you do to protect yourself from having an un-repairable HP plotter? Before it does go down, cover it under an annual maintenance plan. When the day comes when you are in the middle of a large project that needs your HP DesignJet 500 plotter to print and it doesn’t, you’ll be glad you’re covered. Planning ahead will save you time, money and the frustration. With any more questions you can always call MIDCOM at (800) 643-2664 or chat us up on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn!

< Older Post

Newer Post >

Mail

The Real Cost of Downtime for Thermal Barcode Label Printers

By egough • August 21, 2026

Most warehouses and manufacturing floors don't track thermal barcode label printer downtime as a line item. It shows up instead as a shipment that missed its truck, a picker standing idle at a workstation, or a chargeback deducted from an invoice weeks later.

Why Mobile Carts Are Becoming the Backbone of Modern Warehouse Operations

By egough • August 12, 2026

This is the exact problem mobile workstation carts were built to solve, and it's why more warehouses, distribution centers, and third-party logistics (3PL) operations are rethinking the fixed-desk model entirely. Bringing the computer, scanner, and printer to the point of task — rather than making the worker travel to