Epson 740 - odd problem

[Tony]

In my experience that symptom is early warning of a printhead needing attention.
I suggest you e-mail Art Entlich (he has posted to this thread) and ask him for
a copy of his Epson printhead cleaning manual.
He won't charge or spam you.
Make sure you tell him the symptoms and model number.
Tony

 

[Dan S]

He already sent me a lengthy document.. about windex etc. Is that it?

 

[Tony]

That's the one.
Good luck.
Tony

He already sent me a lengthy document.. about windex etc. Is that it?

 

[Dan S]

Oh-Kay..
lightly greased the shaft with light motor oil. Now who's going to warn me
what that'll do?!
With an artists brush and windex I washed the viper-fangs. Works great! How
often is that needed?

Now to get into the finer points.
Prints are hardly ever as good as I think they'll be. Using Kodak color app.
Some are near-perfect, others have horiz lines.
If I have a pic at 72 dpi, should I change it to higher res in Photodeluxe?
Any difference that way?
What about some electronic thingy that makes the machine use up all its ink?
Getting there.. thanks to youall
Dan

 

[NotMe]

| Here's the solution: tossed for 4th time my drivers..
| I went to the Epson site, found/ downloaded the latest drivers, and
Hooray!
| everything works!
| I will put some 3-in-1 on my shaft if you say wd-40 won't last. But any
oil
| will degrade plastic won't it? what does Epson use? what was it I wiped
off
| that was colored indigo blue?
| Thanks guys
| Dan
|

Try a Teflon spray. You can get this at most after market auto stores.
Alternatively you can use air tool oil or sewing machine oil.

 

[Burt]

| Here's the solution: tossed for 4th time my drivers..
| I went to the Epson site, found/ downloaded the latest drivers, and
Hooray!
| everything works!
| I will put some 3-in-1 on my shaft if you say wd-40 won't last. But any
oil
| will degrade plastic won't it? what does Epson use? what was it I wiped
off
| that was colored indigo blue?
| Thanks guys
| Dan
|

Try a Teflon spray. You can get this at most after market auto stores.
Alternatively you can use air tool oil or sewing machine oil.

Tri-flow is one of the teflon sprays, and it works well on lots of things
that require a minute amount of lubricant with a very thin film. I spray it
on a paper towel or my finger and apply it rather than attempting to spray
it in an area like the inside of a printer. I have used it on a Canon
printer printhead shaft successfully. I don't know about the reactivity of
the carrier, but the teflon material is quite inert.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Hi Dan,

Glad your problems are resolved. WD-40 is designed to spread and
penetrate and contains solvents. Lightweight machine oils, although
organic, usually holds up OK, without getting into wrong spots unless
the amount is excessive.

I don't know what Epson is using now, but they used to use a lightweight
oil, and the color may either be for them to identify, or a spatter of
cyan ink that got on the bar, of something else, but the oil I suggested
seems to do the trick for years.

Unless you know you have a legacy product that doesn't like newer
drivers, I always suggest using the most up to date versions from the
web site,

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

There are a number of causes for head clogs or similar conditions.

1) Some 3rd party or outdated inks may have thickened and not flow
properly (If this is the case you can add a ml or 2ml of the cleaning
fluid suggested (Ammoniated window cleaner and rubbing (isopropyl)
alcohol to each color

2) On the 740, (and other older printers) if the air hole in the
cartridge is clogged or covered with something, and air cannot flow into
the cartridge, a vacuum develops, and ink won't flow well.
3) Wrong type of inks in the cartridges

3) an air leak at the cleaning station, not allowing the vacuum heads
removing the excess air, may be drying out the heads. Of the rubber
bumper around the cleaning station is torn, or has dried ink that
prevents it from fully functioning.

4) With the "sponge" type cartridges, as the ink amounts drop, the
cartridge can sometimes become intermittent

5) If the ink wiper isn't working or hasn't been cleaned well, it may
actually push old dried ink into other nozzles.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Well, I'd hardly consider the document about Windex... it is 32 pages
long, and goes into the details about dozen of differing scenarios and
the potential fixes.

As I mentioned, if the ink wiper has not been attended to and cleaned
well (that's the piece of felt and rubber next to the cleaning station
that wipes the heads when it goes past the wiper can be contaminated
with nearly dry ink that just helps to seal the head nozzles.

Also, make sure you turn off the printer from the front panel on/off
button rather than using a power bar, etc.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I've somewhat lost track of this thread. If you are using a 740 printer
(as stated in the subject title, you don't need any "electronic thingy"
(a chip resetter) because this printer is prior to the chip controlled
cartridge. Your printer will start to flash the LED when the cartridge
gets low, but will allow you to continue to print until it deems the
cartridge near empty. If you still wish to go further with those
cartridges, just remove them using the replacement procedure, and return
the old ones to the printer and it will allow you to print with those
cartridges until they literally run out of ink. The risk of this is
that an air pocket or air lock can develop in the heads. This is not a
permanent condition, but can take a bit longer to get new cartridges
working after the lock occurs.

I suggest using a dpi of no less than 150, and preferably higher (I
usually use about 240-450 dpi) with Epson printers, that's the dpi at
the final size you are printing at.

However, if your source is 72 dpi at the final size, that file is really
not high enough resolution for a good printer result. It will look fine
on screen, but not from your printer. Upsampling the image to a higher
resolution won't greatly improve things. You need the original file
with higher resolution. To get higher resolution from a 72 dpi image,
you probably will need to reduce the printed size of the image (at least
about half the dimensions each dimension). So a 72 dpi 8 x 10" image on
your screen, would need to become a 4 x 5" print (at 144 dpi which is
still low).

The horizontal lines suggest the heads are still not quite clean, and
you are getting deflected nozzles, which the manual I sent you addresses.

Art

 

[Dan S]

Thanks, Arthur!
Got to assume if it can make a perfect print, a lousy print means lousy
resolution in the image file.
If I set up an html page on Netscape and try to print it, it comes out
postage-stamp scale. If I save it to desktop, open it in Internet Exp and
print, it's fine. Seems like someone addressed something like this recently.
dan