HP designjet 500 the system error 21:10

I recently had this problem as well and it was the service station gunked up with a bunch of ink over the years. Remove the right hand cover of the plotter. Remove the 2 screws that hold the service station in place and slide to the right to remove. When removed, take off the small motor by the gears. The rest is all plastic, I removed the 3 screws and "popped" the two black parts apart and cleaned the spitoon, which is just a sponge. I then dropped the thing into the sink and poured dishwasher soap. Let it sit for about an hour and rinse. It is really really messy. Then put the whole thing back together again. If I recall, the motor was the only electrical component.

Use care and caution so as NOT to break anything and I recall that the only electrical part was the small motor by the gears.

This wasn't so bad and I spent about 8 hours just because I was exercising much caution. If you're more mechanically inclined on the first go, then I would guess about 1 hr to clean and another 1 or two for dry time.

This SOLVED my problem and WOW there was a bunch of ink over the years. Don't worry, that is what the "spitoon" is used for to soak up the excess ink. Well, if not maintained or replaced, then the ink gunks the insides rock hard as in my case.

A new station is about $160 bucks. If you have HP install then you are looking at a few hundred more on top of that. To me, it was worth it and if it didn't work then I just get a new one and I had nothing to lose since the plotter was getting past the 21:10 error.

Be sure to download the HP Service Manual online so you know how to remove the service station. It is just 2 screws. Without the manual, I probably would have taken off many more screws as I would not have thought the service station simply slid out to the right. The designjet is well designed and was glad that I found a service manual online.


Good luck and use caution,

Hey thanks a lot people. I have been without a printer for almost two weeks now and it just only took me a minute to have it fixed through your solutions help. I was having the same problem of 21:10 error message and which indicated severe error: 0x3010002 task: tMech file: sequence.c line:758

I just too a tissue and wipe the old ink pocketed in teh service station. My mistake has been not to wear a glove and my hands are horrible.

I thought there was no way cleaning the station would fix this problem. The repair service said error 21:10 would be between $600 and $1000 including the service call. I took it apart (with pictures of each step) Cleaned a huge amount of gunk out from around the ratcheting wheel thing, dried everything off, put it back together and it works like new. Thanks for the help

What a life saver! Been without my plotter for a couple of weeks, decided to try John444's method. Very easy to take the station out and take it apart, having downloaded the repair manual .pdf file. The top came of easily after removing the 3 screws. The base spitoon was a little more tricky - until I found the 2 hidden catches on the right hand side (opposite the wheel). My plotter is only lightly used for a few high quality print jobs, so there was very little wet ink but lots of thick sticky gunge around the wheel scraper. I opted for a dry approach and used a plastic plant label to carve away all the thick mass from around the edges of the wheel and the sprung plastic scraper, collecting up the waste in a small box as I went. Used lots of tissues and kitchen paper but the whole job took less than an hour and cost a few pence to solve! The only thing is I wished I had put a pair of dispossible gloves on at the start, took 2 days to wear the ink of my hands! Many thanks

My ploter hp 500 do not accept sheet