1400 series, black blurring/doubling, signs of a failing print head?

[DonC]

I'm wondering if anyone can enlighten me about what signs of a failing print head look like on this series printer.

Due to the recent situation I have been neglecting my 1430 a bit. Aside from the usual nozzle issues that I have mostly solved, I have this strange doubling from black which is most apparent in text. I'm currently getting a perfect nozzle check on black but as you can see from the picture all is not well. I've gone through multiple print head alignments with no real change. An identical page printed in light blue shows no sign of this effect.

I'm worried that the print head might be dying. Any ideas if there is another possibility? Thanks as always.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I would try to clean the coding/positioning band - a small plastic stripe which spans across the width of the print bed and passes through a sensor at the rear of the printhead carriage. Clean this band with a piece of kitchen paper and wetted with a window cleaner, this band collects ink fog deposits over time. And then reprint text or whatever for a test.

 

[DonC]

Thanks as always for your prompt help. I did clean the encoder strip, but that doesn't seem to be the issue, particularly since it is particular to black. Note the crop of this test page I printed below.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Please post a nozzle check which may show some irregularities as well in this case. What type of inks are you using - refill ? pigment inks ? Did you change anything in the last weeks - cartridges from another supplier ? or did you have some other ink/printhead related failures - missing nozzles ? What is the usage status of the printer - printed pages ? You may read out these values with the status report of the WicReset utility. Did you do a printhead alignment recently ?

 

[DonC]

I just printed this check.

I'm using Precision Colors dye inks - probably considered a bit old at this point (about 5 years)
This started when I did a quick print job (colored and black text) after not using the printer for a few weeks. The color nozzles showed some evidence of gaps, but the black displayed this fuzziness or ghosting issue. After running through my usual gamut of getting rid of the gaps this problem with the blacks persists. I tried multiple print head alignments. with no major improvement. The WICreset report is below. Thanks again.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

There are missing nozzles in the magenta range, you cannot do a printhead alignment with missing nozzles, and a printhead alignment is typically not necessary over a longer usage time, it's basically a one-time setup thing as part of the setup/installation procedure.
Try to get the magenta missing nozzles cleaned away, and then try to print for comparision with these options on/off - edge smoothing (in the extended settings tab presumably) - and high speed on/off which controls the bidirectional printing. I'm not really clear yet about the cause, I won't think it's ink related at this time, and the black nozzles all print.

 

[DonC]

Thanks for your suggestions. I have not been able to get those missing nozzles back yet (using a few techniques short of a full flush) , but I did confirm that the problem disappears when high speed printing is disabled. Does this indicate it is a software control issue? should I perhaps reinstall the drivers? Or just never use high speed printing?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

There are various similar video clips on Youtube how to flush an Epson printhead, like this one
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IszUNL7znds

You just may use the high speed printing option off for a short while until the printhead is clean and you could do a correct alignment with all patterns and not just the black ones. The alignment is off at this point of time .

 

[DonC]

I seem to have now caused a bigger problem during attempting to clean the heads. I must have gotten something out of position or blocked. Now when I power on the printer it tries to get the carriage into the home position, but apparently is not able to get the carriage locked, I then get power light off with ink and paper lights flashing together! Please help.

 

[ice-t]

I seem to have now caused a bigger problem during attempting to clean the heads. I must have gotten something out of position or blocked. Now when I power on the printer it tries to get the carriage into the home position, but apparently is not able to get the carriage locked, I then get power light off with ink and paper lights flashing together! Please help.

Check if the wiper is still out and never move the carriage while it's in its locked position