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[OM] Resurrecting a "dead" Epson printer

Subject: [OM] Resurrecting a "dead" Epson printer
From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 15:18:46 -0400
Cc: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
For the past day or two I have been trying to come to grips with 
spending money for a tabloid size printer since my little Epson letter 
size printer apparently died.  After performing its last 8x10 print (at 
which it did a very fine job) it informed me that the yellow cartridge 
was empty.

I changed the yellow out for a new one and then noticed that the nozzle 
check test was showing no yellow ink at all.  I ran the cleaning cycle 
and a new nozzle test only to discover that the cyan and magenta were 
now having noticeable problems and the black was looking a little faint. 
  Clean and recheck and instead of getting better it got worse again. 
Many more cleaning cycles later (perhaps 12-15 altogether) the yellow 
was still completely non-existent and the other colors weren't far 
behind.  Pulled the cartridges and reseated them several times and still 
no change... worse if anything.

Got on the horn with Epson tech support who were sympathetic but not 
particularly helpful.  They advised me I clearly had a "hardware" 
problem and that I needed to send the printer for service.  No, says I, 
the printer is too old and too cheap to be economically serviced.  To 
keep me happy and in the family they pointed me to their "loyalty" site 
where with a special pass key you can get some price deals on selected 
products.  I finally ended up instead at the refurb shop looking over an 
R1800 for $399 with shipping included.

But before handing over my credit card I decided to get a bit more 
drastic with the old printer.  After all, if it was truly dead, I wasn't 
going to cause it any more harm by inadvisable repair techniques.  To 
make a long story a bit shorter:  I removed the cartridges which, like 
many other Epson printers, insert into the printer by being forced down 
over a pointed ink supply tube that feeds the print heads in some 
mysterious way.  At first glance these feed tubes appear to be a solid 
acrylic cylinder about 3-4mm in diameter and 10-15mm long with a rounded 
tip on the end that inserts into the cartridge.  But, on closer 
inspection, they seem to have a series of extremely fine slits arranged 
in a radial pattern around the tip.

I reasoned that perhaps these very fine slits were clogged with old 
pigment ink.  This didn't seem terribly likely (actually, very 
improbable) given that all of the colors had failed almost completely 
and nearly simultaneously but I had nothing to lose but a little bit of 
time trying to see if I could remedy that.  So, I gathered up some 
cotton swabs and got the tips quite saturated with water and just 
started swabbing around the tube and over the slits on the tip.  I used 
both ends of a clean swab on each color.  When swabbing around the 
perimeter of the tube for the most part all I was picking up was clean 
looking ink.  But when near the base of the tube or the tip I was 
picking up quite a bit of black.  Not as dark as the black ink but 
something that clearly didn't look like nice clean cyan, magenta or 
yellow ink.  Old, concentrated pigment perhaps?  I don't know. 
Amazingly, after reinstalling the cartridges and running the nozzle 
check I managed to get some yellow for the very first time from that new 
cartridge and there was a bit more of the other colors as well.  Tried 
it again and got momentarily discouraged since the nozzle check showed I 
has lost some ground.  But I persevered and applied both ends of another 
4 swabs to each color with a cleaning cycle and nozzle check after each 
and finally got a perfect nozzle check.

So, if your old Epson printer seems to have kicked the bucket maybe you 
can bring it back to life.  Still thinking about that R1800 though. 
When I was in Boston I had free access to two 24" wide Epson pro 
printers plus a tabloid size Epson as well.  Even better, I had free 
access to someone who knew how to use them much better than I did.  I 
didn't even have to pay for paper or ink (within reason).  Now I don't 
know if I really want to spring for a tabloid size printer or just farm 
out the smallish quantity of large prints to the lab.  I knew the answer 
a few hours ago.  Now I don't.

Chuck Norcutt

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