Epson L210 won't!

[Stuart21]

I scored an Epson L210 from a friend. Low milage, (just over 1,000 pages) & was looking forward to putting it to work.

Test print was 80 - 90 % good so I ran a couple of test cycles. No improvement. So I decided to bleed the tubes -black, magenta and cyan. Yellow was printing fine, so did not bleed it. Black bled very slow, eventually got it somewhat better.

Now, I have exactly ZERO print from any head / jet! Even yellow!

I should add it also had a flashing ink led which I tried to reset - got it off by holding the switch for twenty seconds or so, then hitting it again -

Do I have to reset printer or something to get it printing again?

 

[Stuart21]

'so I ran a couple of (test) cleaning cycles'

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I must admit I'm not very clear about the printer status from your explanations, please post a nozzle check if the printer is letting you to run it, and run the WICReset utility to check for the status of the waste ink reservoir and run the status report to get info about possible error conditions. And what is the status of the ink containers ?

 

[Stuart21]

Thanks, ISF. These are the screen shots that seem to be relevant. Test print - goes through all the motions, but prints absolutely nothing - not a single jet firing.
All 4 tanks have ink, minimum is abt 8 mm above 'low' mark. Not sure why iWIC is showing all colours 'UNAVAILABLE' ???

Have run software update, no change. Also deleted and reinstalled printer in software updates - same.

TIA!

 

[Stuart21]

Also deleted and reinstalled printer in (software updates) system preferences - same nothing.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

What is the position of the ink valve - the little knob at the bottom front corner of the of the frame holding the ink reservoirs ? Let's go from there depending on the position of that valve.

The status report shows some 'mechanism overloads', that's typical if you load too much paper into the paper bin.
Your waste ink container is almost full, you'll need to reset that counter pretty soon, with WICReset.
The waste ink reservoir should be accessible at the back side, there should be a screw at the bottom edge holding a box you can take out and fill up with absorbing paper like kitchen paper towels.
Since there are no chips on the cartridges the firmware won't read any ink levels there.
The driver on the utilities tab let you reset the ink level counter, typically to be done when filling up ink again.

 

[Stuart21]

Ink valve open -

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Fine, I must admit - I stumbled about this valve some years ago when trying to fix a L300. This valve is gone with newer L-seried models - the L310 as the successor to the L300 does not have it anymore.
You need to free the printhead carriage - power up the printer, and pull the power cord as soon as the printhead disengages from the resting position. Move the carriage into a position that you can take off the cover over the
tubes connected to several cartridges, it should be just one screw. You now can take out the special cartridges and have access to the ink pickup poles. Do all this with the ink valve closed for a while until you want to let the ink flow again.
The cartridges contain a fine wire mesh filter which clogs from contaminated inks, and there is a little reservoir which should be filled to about 30-50%. You can push a syringe into the cartridge opening and pull some ink if it is empty - 70% is enough, a little air bubble can remain.
And you can clean the ink paths in the printhead , watch this video, the second part with the syringe pulling and
pushing a cleaner through the ink channels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snp2whsKHLs
If the filters are clogged the cartridges/dampers can be replaced with spares available via Aliexpress from China, but I would not assume at this time that all filters are clogged 100% at the same time.
And you can disconnect the ink tubes from the cartridges if you need to - with the valve closed, the ink otherwise would run back into the reservoir and you would need to do an ink charge again - via WICReset which increments the waste ink counter significantly

 

[Stuart21]

Thanks ISF. I bled all colours a couple of days ago, except yellow as it was fine.

This was the test at the start - (two runs shown here together, 2nd one is the lower) so you can see it was not too bad - actually close to good. But now it is exactly zero! Not one jet firing! Very unlikely to go from pretty good to zero because of a blockage, I think?

I am worried that I might have done some damage to main board or printhead or something.

Would there be any printer reset procedures, other than iWIC, etc etc?

Thanks,
Stuart.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm not aware of a reset, you wouldn't be able to do a reset on a damaged mainboard anyway. there is some service/maintenance utility sold at the place you get WICReset from, but I'm not sure how that could help in your case; there might be contact problem with the flat cable connected to the printhead carriage, a short from excessive cleaning liquid or something. Is there some ink in the dampers ? Can you pull ink through them with a syringe ?