HP CE398A 1500-Sheet Tray for HP Laserjet 600, P4010 and P4500 series Printers.

CE398A_feeder top-right-photo

CE398A is the 1500-Sheet paper feeder for the HP Laserjet Enterprise 600 M601 series (M601, M602, M603). It also works with the older Laserjet P4010 and P4500 series printers replacing the CB523A that was originally intended for them.

Trade jargon calls devices like this HCI or High Capacity Input.

At 60 pages per minute an M603 printer can consume the content of a 500 sheet cassette paper input tray in just over 8 minutes.   Whilst running the printer continually is not usual it is certainly something some users want to do for tasks like billing or even book printing. The 1500 sheet feeder raises the capacity significantly. With a full stack of cassettes and the MP-tray open to a grand total of 3,600 pages - an hour of printing without reloading paper.   Unfortunately there is still a need to unload paper, the output bin capacity is 600 pages; with an output accessory it is 1,100 pages.

People's "take" on things like the 1500 sheet vary. Corporates may well specify them automatically, printers generally go on a stand in a central shared space where everyone can access them and the office doesn't come to a halt when the paper runs out because there is usually plenty left in the big feeder unit. Smaller offices try to do without expensive things like the feeder and put up with managerial invective when paper runs out so five copies of a crucial report won't print before a meeting.

When a printer is in continual use there will usually be a production line of people making up catalogues and stuffing envelopes. Machinery to do that sort of thing is available but HP don't provide it - and it is in a completely different price class to the 1500 sheet feeder. People doing a post-room or bookbinding task can fill the cassette up every few minutes as well. In terms of modern laser printers the 1500 sheet feeder is an expensive device at about £460- more expensive than the basic printers. It's cost is nothing compared to most professional paper handling equipment. The feeder can be treated as one of those industrial bits of kit that lets people get on with more important things.

Features

  • The printer is designed to use up to four additional trays, one of which can be a 1500 sheet feeder. The printer can handle many types and sizes of paper - these include legal size, letterhead and pre-punched, and can use up to three reams of plain paper in the 1500 sheet tray.
  • The 1500 sheet tray saves trips to load paper in the printer
  • This paper tray is simple to install, and has unique sensors that automatically detect paper size. It also has easy-to-use paper guides and a paper level indicator that lets users know how much paper is loaded without opening the tray.
  • The 1500 sheet paper tray supports media sizes, custom:210 x 279 to 216 x 356 mm, minimum dimensions (W x D x H):396 x 511 x 254 mm, weight:13.0 kg

CE398A can be used instead of the CB523A built for the P4014 series. (CB523A CANNOT be used with the M601 (or M604) series.)

The CE398A is a cabinet that must go at the bottom of the accessory stack. There is no feed-through mechanism for any accessory to be below it, so there can be only one 1500 sheet device. There can be three CE998A 500 sheet devices above it.

Paper loads through the front of the device, up to 3 reams at a time.   When it is loaded the paper stack is positioned so that the top sheets are pointing into the feed and separation roller pair. The feed roller pushes paper forward, up and into the printer.   If two or more sheets move the separation roller pushes them back.

The CE398A high capacity feeder looks different to the 500 sheet feeders but it actually shares the repertoire of faults. Number one is worn rollers - and the 1500 sheet feeder unit uses (pretty much) the same roller kit. Next thing to check might be the torque limiter RC2-5771. We don't think torque limiters actually go wrong much but they are easily changed, HP have introduced one as a "kit" in the LaserJet M604 and it is worth having one to try. We would expect the 1500 sheet feeder to also suffer from sticking solenoid problems - however HP don't seem to list a solenoid, just the whole Paper pickup drive assembly (1x1500) RM1-8457.

The service manual is specific about the pickup and separation rollers and says they are RM1-0037-020CN. Parts lists sometimes contain another number, Q7829-67925 which distributors lists say is HCI feed roller (blue) or LJ42/4300 FEED ROLL (RM1-0037-020).

Warranty: 90 day limited warranty

The 1500 Sheet Paper Tray is often purchased with associated parts for this printer, the 500 Sheet Paper Tray RM1-4559 and Printer Stand CB525A

HP Information

In 2013 HP Partsurfer showed no information on this part but in 2015 it had a little

CE398-67901 1500 Sheet HCI Kit

HP LASERJET ENT 600 M601DN PRINTER
HP LASERJET ENT 600 M601N PRINTER
HP LASERJET ENT 600 M602DN PRINTER
HP LASERJET ENT 600 M602N PRINTER
HP LASERJET ENT 600 M602X PRINTER
HP LASERJET ENT 600 M603DN PRINTER
HP LASERJET ENT 600 M603N PRINTER
HP LASERJET ENT 600 M603XH PRINTER
HP LASERJET P4015X PRINTER
HP LASERJET P4515TN PRINTER
HP LASERJET P4515X PRINTER

This product has a short public code CE398A and the longer code CE398-67901 possibly intended for engineering brown-box or exchange parts (which may carry a lesser warranty).

Icecat gave four GTINs in 2013 0886111320110, 0008611132011, 5711045459344, 8861113201102

Things were unchanged in July 2015 although the information had been modified on 17th May.

Fits printers in the P4010, P4500 and M600 range.
CE398A

Web Research

A google Query on CE398A (in quotes") in August 2013 gave about 13,700 results (0.21 seconds) with the first in organic search being as follows:

hp.com $499.00, hp.com £533,amazon.co.uk £617.95, provantage.com $480.92, provantage.com $480.92, tigerdirect.com $536.94, ebuyer.com £416.65, printerworks.com refurb $395.00, cdw.com $609.99, pricegrabber.com list no info immediately available, pricegrabber.com CompuBiz USA, Inc. $542.00, printware.co.uk £519.85, printershowcase.com $529.00, shopbot.ca DirectDial $580, amazon.com $450.00, fastprinters.com $640.62, newegg.ca out of stock, myshopping.com.au Megabuy $415.73, computeruniverse.net € 586, shopbot.com.au Nanobyte Solutions $458.90, printers-uk.com £ 491.49, nextdaytoner.com login, getprice.com.au not available, hardware.com £488.56, officecrave.com $503.99, icecat.us product codes only, shopmania.co.za Phoenix Tech R8.718, adorama.com $500.46, theprinterdepo.com $540.99, wiseguys.co.nz $673.95,

Prices noted are for a new item, one off, without tax. The list is as encountered. We haven't bothered with currency conversion - half of our readers are outside the UK and are more interested in dollar prices.

Weight

13 Kilogrammes.

15.9 kg/

Dimensions

Minimum dimensions (W x D x H) 396 x 511 x 254 mm

Package dimensions (W x D x H) 595 x 495 x 384 mm

Paper Handling

Media sizes from 210 x 279 to 216 x 356 mm

Whats in the box

HP LaserJet 1500-sheet Input Tray; Installation Guide; WEEE Errata sheet

Guarantee

HP's UK web site says "90-day limited warranty. So did Icecat.co.uk. They seem to have got this from a US feed. By contrast icecat.dk says "Warranty:1 Year Limited(Next Business Day On-Site). - but that would be an unfair limitation in Europe and the UK.

During our 2013 research none of the websites seen gave any further information on the product - but perhaps that is obvious in this case. One or two vendors out of stock or unavailable. No helpful blogs on this part. All the rest were merely vendors giving no more information than found in the HP brochures and user guide.

Supply Situation

The part is listed by one UK distributor who held some stock in 2013. This remained true in 2015.

We can provide these parts when required. The price in 2013 was about £500 but had dropped to £450 in July 2015. Current price and availability will be reflected in the sales-bar on the right.

Prices quoted in the write-up are mere guidelines for information, our prices change with distribution lists and online research. See the catalog. Stock numbers indicate there is not huge demand for the part but it is available quite readily .

Pricing and Supply

We don't mean to be rude about HP because we like their stuff - and generally we like the company - we've found them to be helpful, more like a small friendly supplier than most printer manufacturers.   Like a lot of big business they don't entirely seem to have cottoned on to the Web. So we come across cases where things cost very substantially more in the UK than they do in the US.

Historically that was commonplace. I once rang up Tektronix to get a price for the static generator to hold paper onto a flatbed plotter. "That will be $1500 or £2500 said the nice lady in spares". I said "you've got that the wrong way round, pounds are worth more than dollars so the number should be lower". "Not the way we do it" was her reply. (A few years later HP DesignJets had driven Tektronix out of the plotter market).

HP_CE398A_HP_UK_Store_L500.jpgHP_CE398A_HP_US_Store_L500.jpg

Lots of things arise out of that:

The costs of doing business are higher in Britain than they are in the US.

The effort to generate a Website is roughly the same but the UK market is a fifth the size of the US. A lower spend on IT and a public sector with wierd purchasing habits make things more difficult. The bigger European market isn't much help because of linguistic difficulties and courier charges - it costs us twice as much to send something to the Irish Republic as it does to ship it within "mainland UK". Shipping to Germany is very expensive - even though a lot of HP stuff actually come in via the Netherlands.

Europeans generally are helping themselves to terms and conditions not available in the US. Quite where HP got that 90 day warranty statement for their UK site we don't know - and perhaps that explains why it is so much dearer here. Its true that the CE398A isn't exactly a consumer item but stating 90 day warranty in the UK doesn't look tenable - particularly when it's one year onsite in Denmark. Even then EU law suggests 2 years and UK law potentially as long as 6 years.

The High Capacity Feeder is the sort of gadget more businesses would buy if they were cheaper.