Help needed: Epson Stylus Photo 700

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Guest

Hello everyone,

Earlier this week I got an Epson Stylus 700 printer along with a few
other things. The previous owner said it worked, but he had not used it
for about a year and a half.

Last evening I bought original Epson B/W and colour cartridges. Then I
installed the driver from the Epson CD which came with the 700 and
connected it to my Power Mac (see my .sig).

Through the software I ran the test several times, and the printer
hardly put any ink on paper; it was nothing like the digonal coloured
lines the screen and the manual said I should expect.

Thus I proceeded to replace the cartridges as shown in the manual. Then
I noticed the ink was still running inside the old cartridges.

When I turned the printer on after replacing the cartridges, it flashed
the power and 'paper out' lights, while the 'out of B/W ink' and 'out of
colour ink' lights stayed on.

So I went to the troubleshooting section of the manual, and for this
combination I found I should turn the printer off, even though the pages
about replacing the cartridges warned me this would leave the ink
channels not completely filled with ink.

After I turned the printer on and off a few times, I was left with just
the 'out of colour ink' light flashing, the power light on and the other
lights off -- even though I just replaced both cartridges with brand new
original Epson ones :-(!

IMO this problem is due to the ink channels being badly clogged up.
Apart from calling Epson, what can you do about this?

The 700 has been reviewed enthusiastically by my favourite mag
<www.macfan.nl> several years ago, which is why I was so looking forward
to using it. The trouble I had so far is nothing like what little you
have with the StyleWriter 1200 I now use, where the head is built into
the cartridge.

Can you therefore advise me, how to get myself a working 700 out of my
present machine? It would of course be even better if there was a way to
avoid the brand new cartridges going to waste as well ;-).

Yours sincerely,
--
-------
Seiju Teramoto <macfanaat at cistron dot nl>
's-Gravenhage, Nederland / The Hague, the Netherlands
gebruiker / user: Power Mac 7100/80 (MacOS v8.1), Apple //e
al 22 jaar Apple-fan / Apple fan of 22 years' standing
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." -- Steve Jobs
 
Earlier this week I got an Epson Stylus 700 printer along with a few
other things. The previous owner said it worked, but he had not used it
for about a year and a half.
Click to expand...

This guy has some very good suggestions about reviving clogged print heads:

http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/inkjetstuff3.html

This one page is just one of several, so browse the site, and good luck!
--
Please, no "Go Google this" replies. I wouldn't
ask a question here if I hadn't done that already.

DaveC
(e-mail address removed)
This is an invalid return address
Please reply in the news group
 
If you contact me in private email (using the address in the header of
this message), I will help you through this. I can provide you with a
cleaning manual for Epson printers to help you get the heads unclogged,
and I can tell you about the error messages and what to do about them,
as well.

There is no charge for this information.

Art

PS: Be careful of some of the advice being offered on web pages
regarding unclogging Epson heads. Some of it has been responsible for
damaged heads to the printers.
 
Arthur Entlich said:
If you contact me in private email (using the address in the header of
this message), I will help you through this. I can provide you with a
cleaning manual for Epson printers to help you get the heads unclogged,
and I can tell you about the error messages and what to do about them, as
well.

There is no charge for this information.

Art

PS: Be careful of some of the advice being offered on web pages regarding
unclogging Epson heads. Some of it has been responsible for damaged heads
to the printers.
Click to expand...

So why are you keeping this information to yourself? If you want to debunk
such websites and provide 'correct' details as to how to clean the printers;
why do people have to contact you privately?
 
In comp.periphs.printers Arthur Entlich said:
If you contact me in private email (using the address in the header of
this message), I will help you through this. [...]
There is no charge for this information.

Art

PS: Be careful of some of the advice being offered on web pages
regarding unclogging Epson heads. Some of it has been responsible for
damaged heads to the printers.
Click to expand...
[...]

Dear Dave, dear Arthur, hello everyone,

Thanks for your suggestions and offer of help :-). On Friday afternoon I
called Epson Europe (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), where I was told that
a) there was no lifetime guarantee on Epson print heads, only a 1-year
guarantee on the whole printer and b) if I wanted to have my machine
looked at by Epson, I would have to send it to Epson at my expense and
then pay Epson EUR 60.- (yes, sixty euros) to have it looked at and
shipped back to me, with any repair costs coming on top of that :-(.

After reading your suggestions I repeated the procedure for replacing
the cartridges, and now the 700 operates with just the power light on.
The status monitor tells me both cartridges are full.

However, when I tried to print a read-me text file on the 700, I could
only see some faint lines of text when I printed at 720 dpi (next to
nothing at 360 dpi). These lines had some weird indentations which are
simply not there in the text file. Could this point to some deep-seated
problem on the 700's logic board?

When I tried to print in colour some JPEG files from a graphics CD using
GraphicConverter, simply no ink came onto paper. When printing at 720
dpi, B/W or colour, the process would be punctuated by banging noises
from inside the printer.

In short, it looks like my 700 has more problems than I suspected;
nevertheless I am willing to try cleaning the head, in the hope this
would cure the problems.

Any useful info. would be duly appreciated :-). Yours sincerely,
--
-------
Seiju Teramoto <macfanaat at cistron dot nl>
's-Gravenhage, Nederland / The Hague, the Netherlands
gebruiker / user: Power Mac 7100/80 (MacOS v8.1), Apple //e
al 22 jaar Apple-fan / Apple fan of 22 years' standing
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." -- Steve Jobs
 
I debunk them privately. Your choice.

Art

So why are you keeping this information to yourself? If you want to debunk
such websites and provide 'correct' details as to how to clean the printers;
why do people have to contact you privately?
Click to expand...
 
Can you send me a scanned copy of part of the image file you printed
which shows the printing defect you are seeing? If so, please send it
to my private email address scanned at 300 dpi, and send a section about
2" square or equivalent. Please send it as an attachment and jpeg it to
high quality image. I think I have an idea of what you are describing,
but seeing it is much more helpful in diagnosing the cause.

Art

In comp.periphs.printers Arthur Entlich said:
If you contact me in private email (using the address in the header of
this message), I will help you through this.
[...]

There is no charge for this information.

Art

PS: Be careful of some of the advice being offered on web pages
regarding unclogging Epson heads. Some of it has been responsible for
damaged heads to the printers.
Click to expand...

[...]

Dear Dave, dear Arthur, hello everyone,

Thanks for your suggestions and offer of help :-). On Friday afternoon I
called Epson Europe (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), where I was told that
a) there was no lifetime guarantee on Epson print heads, only a 1-year
guarantee on the whole printer and b) if I wanted to have my machine
looked at by Epson, I would have to send it to Epson at my expense and
then pay Epson EUR 60.- (yes, sixty euros) to have it looked at and
shipped back to me, with any repair costs coming on top of that :-(.

After reading your suggestions I repeated the procedure for replacing
the cartridges, and now the 700 operates with just the power light on.
The status monitor tells me both cartridges are full.

However, when I tried to print a read-me text file on the 700, I could
only see some faint lines of text when I printed at 720 dpi (next to
nothing at 360 dpi). These lines had some weird indentations which are
simply not there in the text file. Could this point to some deep-seated
problem on the 700's logic board?

When I tried to print in colour some JPEG files from a graphics CD using
GraphicConverter, simply no ink came onto paper. When printing at 720
dpi, B/W or colour, the process would be punctuated by banging noises
from inside the printer.

In short, it looks like my 700 has more problems than I suspected;
nevertheless I am willing to try cleaning the head, in the hope this
would cure the problems.

Any useful info. would be duly appreciated :-). Yours sincerely,
Click to expand...
 
Never buy an epson if it has not been used for even 1 month. Your 700 is
clogged. There are solutions to disole it sold on ebay. also cleaning
cartridges. You have to unclog the ink feed and that is not an easy tash
with an epson that has not been used for 1.5 years. Never buy a used epson
that does not have ink cartridges in it. dont waste your money on brand name
cartridges with epsons that can take generic cartridges. you may have to
dump tha epson and try to buy another one on ebay that they say is working.
you can get them cheap, but the shipping may be steep for you. As a last
resort try windex to unclog it., if you cannot get the solutions sold on
ebay to unclog. good luck.

john
 
There is so much questionable here, I don't even know where to begin.

I think I'll just confirm the things he got right, since that's easier.

1) In general, try to avoid buying Epson printers that doesn't have the
cartridges installed, unless the printer is brand new (no cartridges
ever installed). It is true they can be harder to unclog if left to dry
out completely.

2) Yes, ammoniated window cleaner is very effective with most Epson OEM
and many other, but not all, inks. In general, it is not worth buying
the costly cleaners sold on many websites.

The rest of the information is highly subjective and misleading, if not
downright wrong.

Art
 
Pretty rude to castigate a fellow (Arthur Entlich) who expends tremendous
amounts of his time to help people on this Newsgroup. He is kind enough to
encourage people to email him so he can return his extremely helpful
monograph on Epson head cleaning. I don't know him personally, but he has
my thanks for helping me to revive my printer. Although he obviously
doesn't need anyone to defend him from negative posts I feel compelled to
post this thanks for his generous efforts on behalf of readers of this NG.
 
Thanks for your kind words, Burt, but these postings don't really worry
me. I responded at the time, or at occasional random times, why I
prefer to use email over a public posting or website. Ultimately, I
know more people benefit from my email contact methods because they get
personalized service.

I only warn people about some advice offered on websites, because I
often end up dealing with the aftermath when people contact me asking
why their printer no longer works, and often I have to sadly inform them
that the heads have likely been damaged, quite unnecessarily.

Art
 
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