Epson Sylus Colour 980. Scrap or repairable?

[Brian Cartwright]

Every time a printing task is completed, the colour cartridge 'empty' light
comes on. I go through the motions of changing the cartridge and after a
long winded ink charging and cleaning session, the printer will work again
until the next job is completed. The whole sequence of events is then
repeated. The colour cartridge is a new one and is original Epson. The pages
printed are simply black text and totally without colour.
Can anyone help?

 

[Arthur Entlich]

The 980 printer doesn't use any chips in the cartridge, and it has no
actual method of knowing if there is ink in the cartridge or not.

It only uses a countdown system to guess how much ink has been used from
the most recent installation, which it assumes is a new cartridge, and
the current time.

I would reset the ROM of the printer, because it may be scrambled and
causing incorrect ink counting".

To reset the IC ROM and the ink timer do the following:

Reset for Stylus Color 980 printer:

With printer off, and preferably disconnected from the computer, press
the ON, Load/Eject and Cleaning buttons all at once.

Let go of all buttons as printer goes into special mode.

While Paper Out LED is flashing (does so for about 2 seconds)

Press on Load/Eject button again for a couple of seconds to reset IC and
ink timer

Then turn printer off, and reconnect to computer.

If this doesn't fix it, there may be a problem with the leaf spring in
the cartridge compartment making an intermittent contact.

Art