Epson 1500W How to Bypass Disabling

[David Price]

I have a 1500W printer which is about a year or so old. It does not get a great deal of work so I keep it fresh by running a test print every week or so. Recently a few days after a perfect printing session I came to use it again but every one of the six colours had prominent white horizontal bands, the yellow had a little bit of bleed from black. I tried a few head clean cycles and nozzle checks but to no avail. Eventually the printer disabled itself with a single ink out light on the yellow colour. It also disabled the printer completely. I have had cartridge rejections before with this printer but it had always been with all six colours. I did a cartridge changes which has always fixed it. This time it is different. I have had different colour-out lights for yellow, black, light cyan and latterly both magentas. I have tried flushing the heads through with diluted window cleaner but still both magentas light up. The printer will not work in this state so I cannot use the inbuilt head clean system. All ink reservoirs have plenty of ink. All ink tubes are full of ink with no visible airlocks.

As there has been a variety of colour rejections I feel it is probably a case of ink deposits under the print head carrier. I have tried the blotting paper under the carrier and moving the carrier back and forth. All six heads have been flushed through once with plenty of coloured fluid soaked up by the blotting paper. I did not see any magenta traces mostly cyan and black.

The printer is currently switched off and will be left for a day or two to see if there is any delayed result from the head flushes.

I see a lady last year had an extensive series of exchanges in this forum complaining about something very similar to what I am having but I have not seen any conclusive result being reported.

Can I easily remove the print heads for manual cleaning? I have read before that the 1500W has a reeputation for blocked print heads and there is a U-Tube video which claims to show us all how to change the heads in three minutes. It is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

Anyone knows how I can stop the printer disabling itself when one or more colour out lights come on?

Dave (Newbie here)

Edit:

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

yes, you can get the printhead out as shown in those videos, it's mechanically not that difficult, problems can occur when you try to reconnect the flat cables . But there is not really much more you can do outside than what you did already. You may as well have a look to the cleaning unit and rinse away or wipe up dried up ink and check that the pump is working - the line to waste bin is not blocked with coalgulated ink - give some water or cleaning fluid on the cleaning pad , start a cleaning cycle and watch whether the liquid is gone.
You may use the WicReset utility which has an additional function 'ink charge' which works as an extensive cleaning cycle and helps in some cases.

 

[David Price]

Thanks for your advice but things change!......... Now after a further flush through the heads, I had light cyan and both magentas lit up. I dismounted the cartridges and reinserted them and now I have no ink lights lit up but both the paper out and ink out lights are on but the power light is off. I see nothing obstructing the cartridge carrier, which I might add does not return fully to its home position but remains slightly shy of it and is free to be manually moved without force. Never had anything like this with a printer before and am totally at loss.


To add to the foregoing, have since reperated the cartridge dismount and re-insertion and after turn off and restart all six ink out lights are on and the p[rinter begaqves normally as it should in the situation. I will refer to the CISS instructions to refresh my memory on how to reset it.