Thread: seeking printer advice, epsom

Colours are generally mixed to make up other colours, so you may find one colour channel in your ink cartridge (or a particular cartidge if they are individual tanks) are low.

One good way to test is to open a blank word document, do a few big words in bold, in a Cyan, Megenta, Yellow colour. Print it off. This will give you an idea what tank is low.

TEST
TEST
TEST

Good luck.
oops, I mean good luck.

Thanks fishy, I printed out your test sheet from screen and that was not to bad actually, so going to change the low ink cartridges and follow your advice.

better still is use the Epsom clean system and see if its just blocked or even the Epsom alignment system looking at that print out its not aligned

Could also be your settings, are you printing it using standard print settings or draft?

No the test print showed that one colour was not working and another colour was low, and no amount of clean head instruction would work.

~Dont use my printer much these days. So I suppose things clog up.
When I came back from Oz. last year after that 6 month stay, I was amazed that the printer worked perfectly. So you can never tell whats the problem.

Recipe for disaster leaving the printer for a long time and not printing. The ink lines become clogged with dried ink. Try doing a thorough clean and replace the ink tanks. Epson generic inks can be bought off the internet very cheaply so it wont cost you much to replace the ink tanks. If that doesn't work I think you may be up for a new printer. Printers this day and age are not a repairable proposition unless its a very expensive one.

manruben, you are so right in what you say, mind you I have got my eye on a new printer the one that combines a scanner /printer and other things., They are now below $100 here and with a set of inks, that a cheap start.

too right! I have a HP deskjet that I paid good money for and now I need to buy new inks ,its cheaper to buy the whole unit (scanner/copier/printer) than the inks ....unit cost
$59.00.....combined total for new inks $98.75...not to mention the space saved ...my printer and scanner are seperate units at the moment .....but not for long .....

What Wehhelinround said, while you're at it also run all the other tests using your Epson Printer Utility (might be another name if you're on a PC)

If your colours are starting to print a bit wishy washy then a fair bet is that you are low on black ink.

Have two 1290 Epson Stylus Pros, 1 back up and one user - the user went 5 years without a hitch, I've now retired it until I get it serviced, the backup I started up after being used once, also 6 years old (for good measure I first had it serviced, it still had original colour and black ink cartridges in it)

Problem with modern printers is that the print head is generally an expensive part of the PRINTER and what you buy as ink is just a plastic channel with ink and cotton wool type material in it that soaks through a nipple in the print head - whereas in the good old days of single and dual cartridge printers, most print cartridges actually had the print head as part of the cartridge - stuffed print head, just replace the cartridge and off you go. I have a 2yr old rarely used good Epson photo printer, thats had one lot of cartridges through it - hate to think if its going to work for me or need to be chucked out.

JOW14 this is far out field but has happened to me a when I had my old Epson Pro they are susceptible to electrical stirke/spikes which stuffs the mother board even with surge protectors.

Careful using non-Epson inks as this stuff their jets learnt from experience

Originally Posted by wheelinround

Careful using non-Epson inks as this stuff their jets learnt from experience

Ray, I have had no problem using generic ink cartridges in my Epson R230 for over a year now. The inks are available on ebay for $1.50 per cartridge and comparing them to Epson inks that is huge savings on their prices. The Epson R230 holds 6 ink tanks so I can replace all 6 catrridges for under $10 whereas the Epson tanks cost over $10 each. I do a lot of printing and photos so I use a lot of ink so each time I replace my ink tanks I save at least $50 so not long saving the price of a new printer at that rate. Maybe I have just been lucky.

The problem with non-genuine Epson inks, and it's applicable in my case, is that colour accuracy is lost which is very important in my work that I present to clients. And as Wheelinround wrote and I'll back up, it stuffs up your printer heads.

Originally Posted by Waldo

The problem with non-genuine Epson inks, and it's applicable in my case, is that colour accuracy is lost which is very important in my work that I present to clients. And as Wheelinround wrote and I'll back up, it stuffs up your printer heads.

I guess if you ae using your printer for commercial use then costs don't come into it so much but I must say I have never experienced any drop in quality of colours using generic inks. I print a lot of pictures and can't say as I have noticed any real drop in quality of the print. I find the quality of the photo paper effects the colours more than the inks. I guess over time the generic inks would have an adverse effect on the printer heads but I haven't had anything like that happen yet. So will keep my fingers crossed.