Epson Stylus C80 problem

[Kyle Ertel]

I am having a problem with my Stylus C80 and am hoping someone might be able
to point me in the right direction. I've owned it for nearly 2 years with
virtually no problems. I do not print very frequently, and in this case I
had not used the printer for approximately 1 month. When I turned the power
on, the ink light was flashing. I attempted to print a simple text document
from notepad and the print was very streaked.

I ran the utility to clean the nozzles, but it failed. I then noticed that
the ink light had changed from flashing to solid red. I powered the printer
off and on, but the light stayed red. I then followed the procedure to
remove/reseat the ink cartridges. While doing so, I gently shook the
cartridges to verify that they had ink in them - all of them felt and
sounded nearly full. After completing the procedure, the ink light was
still solid red. I repeated two more times to verify that I was reseating
them properly - everything went as it should have, but the light was still
red.

Per someone's suggestion in another post I found, I unplugged the power and
USB cables and replugged them - no joy. Bottom line is that no matter what
I seem to do, the ink out light is on solid red, and as a result I'm unable
to run any of the utilities from the utility menu - the nozzle check, head
cleaning, and print head alignment all just queue jobs in the print queue,
and the ink cartridge replacement utility is greyed out and unavailable.

I had similar problems with my previous HP printer; the printer would have
plenty of ink but it would report that it did not. HP support told me there
were problems with the chips on the cartridges and that I would have to buy
new ones. This fixed the problem, but was very expensive given that I was
not out of ink. This happened twice - the third time I bought the Epson
Stylus C80 to replace it. Now I'm having the same issue and Epson support
is (surprise) telling me I need to replace the cartridges. I do not want to
have to spend $60 to replace the ink cartridges in this printer - heck, I
can buy a brand new cheap printer that comes with all the ink for less than
that. Printers should not be disposable devices - does anyone have any
suggestions as to what can be done and/or why the ink out light is solid red
when I still have ink?

 

[Tony1that matters]

- does anyone have any

suggestions as to what can be done and/or why the ink out light is solid red
when I still have ink?

I've had the same when testing - pretty much to destruction - the C80 and
the 810. Usually this indicates that the contacts are contaminated or
smeared with ink. With the cartridges out clean the contact splines with a
cotton bud by stroking down. Equally clean the cartridge contacts of any
smears of spilt ink: an alchohol helps ensure a grease free contact.
That worked for me every time.
Tony

 

[Safetymom123]

How long have you had the cartridge in that printer? Cartridges are
recommended to be changed after 6 months. There is a little bit of ink left
in the cartridge when empty. Which ink is reporting low? If one ink is out
the printer will not print.

 

[Kyle Ertel]

The ink has been in there for longer than 6 months, but I can't see how that
would make a difference in this case - I could understand reduced print
quality, but the printer refusing to work simply because the ink has been in
it longer than 6 months? As stated in my post, I have no clue which ink it
considers low since the portion of the utility screen where this would
typically show is "greyed out". I attempted to download and reinstall the
Epson utility program from their site, but attempting to run the W2K/XP
version on my XP Pro computer results in a "file not found" error due to the
fact that it's a 16-bit DOS installer (apparantly). Regardless, my best
guess based on weight and sound tells me that none of the carts are less
than 80% full.

So you're saying that if even one of the carts is low, the entire printer
will refuse to print anything?

 

[Safetymom123]

The viscosity of the ink may have changed. The manu. tells you to replace
the cart. after 6 months. Yes if one of the cartridges is low or out the
printer will refuse to print.

 

[brane_ded]

Download this free utility to check cart. status

http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml