Got a flashing red light on the five colour cartridge in my Epson Stylus Photo 700 - that usually indicates that a cartridge is nearly exhausted - Red light goes constant when it is finished. When i attempted to print out a photo with the light flashing it came out as all red - that doesn't usually happen. Thought nothing of it and so replaced cartridge - it was about due as this is a yearly event.

Once I replaced it things really started going haywire. It refused to print all the colours. Photos printed out green. So I cycled the head cleaning routine a couple of times. Still no joy. I cycled the HC routine x5 - again no improvement. This is odd because if its missing lines after a period of disuse, then cycling the HC routine 2 or 3 times usually puts the printing quality back to normal.

I then decided to clean the colour jets using a proprietry cleaning cartridge. Cycled the HC routine x 5 - still no joy. So then I started the printer without a colour cartridge inserted, in the hope that would reset an aberrant software values. re-inserted the new colour cartridge - still no joy, in fact now the red light on the separate black cartridge started flashing.

Went through the same routine with that and now black isn't printing at all whilst colour has decided it will.

Poking the end of a map pin through the ink dispensing orifices of both the original cartridges, marks the pin with the appropriate ink, indicating that they have still got ink in them.

However, i note that the distribution of ink on this pattern cartridge does not match the label indication on the top of the cartridge - label says (Left to right) Dark blue,magenta,yellow, cyan, pink, whilst the corresponding ink pots contain dark blue, cyan, magenta, magenta, yellow

Also, i note, that the black cartridge orfice has a spring loaded valve whilst the colour cartridge doesn't.

Whilst that's worthy of note, I have to say that neither of these inconsistencies have had any ill effects on output until now.

Eventually I tried cycling the printer x5 without any cartridges installed - still will only print colour.

I' ll try an overnight switch-off to see if that makes any difference.

Any ideas what this could be in the meantime ?

Nick

Edited 9 January, 201115 yr by Clunkclick

Not sure, but my HP deskjet tells me it has no black ink left in it every time I use it. Print quality is still fine so I'm not changing it until it actually runs low.... Annoying generally as my HP icon on the PC always flags up the warning. Always end up turning it off!

After doing a shed load more of cleaning cycles and cleaning up the area where the print head dumps the cleaning spray output, still no improvement.

Tried upping the print quality to "Best" as some posters on other forums reckoned it would do the business. No joy. Only prints in colour.

I'm beginning to think that the heating element in the black spray head has gone - the printer is 9 years old. How likely is that ?

Nick

ISTR printer manufacturers getting into trouble because the printer firmware even 'thinking' you were low on ink would stop it working properly. Certainly now, all the ink level display can do is warn you the ink's low.

Then again, my old Canon bubble jet printer got a new lease of life from the new print head I bought for it before it eventually went into a terminal decline (assuming your printer just has ink tanks...)

ISTR printer manufacturers getting into trouble because the printer firmware even 'thinking' you were low on ink would stop it working properly. Certainly now, all the ink level display can do is warn you the ink's low.

Then again, my old Canon bubble jet printer got a new lease of life from the new print head I bought for it before it eventually went into a terminal decline (assuming your printer just has ink tanks...)

There's even a third -party utility for the modern Epson printers to reset the ink "Count" on the chipped cartridges when people mistaken remove them before their empty.

As you said, if the count isn't reset, the firmaware sometimes treats a re-inserted cartridge as empty (You'd think it would be the other way around).

Thankfully, my printer pre-dates all this rubbish - the cartridges are not chipped.

That didn't stop me using the utility to attempt to reset the firmaware on mine, in case it had got corrupted - but my machine didn't want to know.

I did update the Firmware some time ago so that its centronics interface would accomodate a USB connection, but that was it. I suppose I could try re-doing that Firmware installation again so that it would eliminate the possibility of corruption of that causing the black ink problem.

The thing has had relatively light use and, in all other respects operates quite well, so I'm loath to ditch it without a good try at a re-instating reapir..

Nick

I'm going to have one last stab at this using a homebrew solvent based on this using the following:-

Basically a 5% solution in distilled water of Isopropyl alcohol, ethyl or propyl glycol applied direct to each printhead input nozzle using a syring and tubing.

Boots + Halfrauds should do the trick.

General advice on the web is that the nozzles on Epson ink jets which have a printhjead separate from the cartridge can get blocked simply if you take too long changing the cartridge - exposure to air makes this water based ink solidify quickly.

Some people have found glass cleaner, with the same consituents as above effective. In fact, it may be cheaper to go down that route that buy bulk supplies.

Nick

The cables to the printhead have a habit of coming loose.

see

http://www.feedroller.com/Store/Service%20Manual/Stylus%20Photo%20EX%20Service%20Manual.pdf

and

http://www.feedroller.com/Store/Service%20Manual/Stylus%20Photo%20Service%20Manual.pdf

The cables to the printhead have a habit of coming loose.

see

http://www.feedroller.com/Store/Service%20Manual/Stylus%20Photo%20EX%20Service%20Manual.pdf

and

http://www.feedroller.com/Store/Service%20Manual/Stylus%20Photo%20Service%20Manual.pdf

VMT for that. I'll have a good long read this evening.

Fully assembled there's not to much to see of the ribbon cable, but prima facie it looked OK. Anyway, I'll have the casing off and check everything out before using the toxic chemicals !

Got 300Ml of isopropyl alcohol B.P., + 2 x syringes, + one needle at lunchtime. Will canabilise the feed tube inside of a bottle of bathroom cleaner or use model airrcraft fuel tubing (I've got yards of it somewhere in the loft). Get some anit-freeze mix from halfrauds tonight and then do a bit of wizardary with the ionised water for me steam iron. Presto !

Even 5% are think I'll be trying it out on some sacrificial printer palstic before trying it on the print head.

Nick

Partially disassembled the machone PM and serviced and cleaned the print head. On re-assembly, put new cartridges in - cycled the cleaning routine about 4 times - nothing.

Possibly dodgy cartridges as the last batch were refills bought (for the first time) from a local supplier and I've found that the tear-off strip never detached as it should, no matter how careful I was.

But i'm inclined to believe that something in the machine has broken, - it is nine years old.

So I think I'm now in the market for a new replacement printer.

I want to avoid inkjets if possible, because my infrequent use would risk the heads clogging-up.

Are there any colour lasers sub £200 and are they any good ?

Nick

In terms of getting an idea of what's on the market, these deals are on ebuyer. Even their no-name brand stuff is OK IME, but you'd obviously need to consider availability of toner in the case of a printer:

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Photo/cat/Printers/subcat/Laser-Printers---Colour

Even though I hate Samsung household goods with a passion, I swear by my old Samsung mono laser printer, so the CLP-325 there would probably be worth a look. The wireless version isn't on ebuyer, but seems to go for about GBP50 more!

HTH

In terms of getting an idea of what's on the market, these deals are on ebuyer. Even their no-name brand stuff is OK IME, but you'd obviously need to consider availability of toner in the case of a printer:

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Photo/cat/Printers/subcat/Laser-Printers---Colour

Even though I hate Samsung household goods with a passion, I swear by my old Samsung mono laser printer, so the CLP-325 there would probably be worth a look. The wireless version isn't on ebuyer, but seems to go for about GBP50 more!

HTH

Cheers

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/type/review/category/printing

Good reports and prices on both the mono and colour laser printers.

I definitely think my existing Epson photo printer is a goner, despite syringing the printhead through with distilled water + 5% mix of propyl alcohol and surfactant based windscreen cleaner, and thoroughly cleaning out the ink waste trap, nothings being printed now. Suspect that one of the Ics on the main board has given up the ghost. So the repair is probably beyond me - once you start serious disassembly of the kit you need a stack of electronic kit to asess the components, which i haven't got, as well as a suite of Epson re-calibration software for re-assembly which does not appear to be immediately available on-line (apart from the usual spy-ware laden sites).

Having had recent negative experience with appointed white goods service agents (Who basically only repaired a 5 year old microwave under protest, and really expected me to throw away the defective unit), I am loath to take my printer into the local Epson service agent. Anyway, I would imagine they would replace the ICs and the printhead (Approx £70) and with two hours of labour and two new cartridges would be £180 (£50 for first hour and £30 for the second).

Thinking seriously about it, My annual ouput is only about 100 pages, so that there would be a lot of wastage with a laser given a toner shelf life of 2 years and a capacity of 1000 pages. Also they consume a lot more power At the moment I have been using, despite all the wastage implicit in inkjets, just 1 x colour and 1 x black Epson cartridges per year.

Really, i only have a small requirement for text printing and a similar requirement for photos and would be looking to " Clear the desktop" i.e. combine the functions of the existing photo scanner and photo printer in one device, ideally with a sheet feed and a wired network capability.

So, i've been looking at the mutifunction devices. Quite like the look of the Cannon Pixma inkjets printer/scanner/fax. Some of these have separate colour cartridges which would be good for economy, although perhaps not for total cost. And I'm thinking that may be Cannon have printheads built into the cartridge, unlike the Epson and that the cannon's heat activated ink spray might be less susceptible to blockage than the Epson's peizo electric ink spray valve.

Nick

Edited 17 January, 201115 yr by Clunkclick

That went WAAAYYY over my head!

(Thanks for the pic, whoever you are! )

Spoke to the local Epson appointed agent who told me if it was anything other than simple print head cleaning then they'd send it back to Epson and it would cost a fortune. He also more or less confirmed that its was highly unlikely that a successful repair of a 11-year old machine (Of 1998 and XP provenance) would be unlikely. So chuck it.

So I decided to get a replacement - a multifunction Epson Stylus photo which was on offer with £50 off at Amazon. So far so good. Cheaper than then one it replaced.

Prints paper, light card, photo paper, even CDs. Prints double sided.

Scan to print, computer or to card.

Wifi, ethernet or USB connection.

Ports for USB stick, compact flash, SD/MiniSD.

Very impressed how far the technology's advanced. Printing now very fast.

Genuine ink is a bit pricey at 6 cartridges x £10 - the pattern jobs come in at about a third of that.

I'm going to have just one more go at cleaning the print head on the old one this weekend and if it revives it, i'try flogging it on E-bay for a few quid.

Nick