My best EPSON PRO 3800 seems to have died!

jtoolman

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After great service, printing numerous prints on my Matte papers, this EPSON PRO 3800, my WORKHORSE for my CANSON Water Color printes, with only about 600 total prints done on it, appears to have died.
Nothing prints. It went from printing perfectly to nothing.
The printer was working fine until the move from about 3 feet away in one direction to a few feet over! On a rolling cart!
I did not test it after the 3 foot long relocation. In fact nothing was even disconnected during the move.
I had spilled some ink on the out side of it months ago due to my stupidity of having a small open of Magenta ink as I was topping off one of the refillable carts.
After a thorough cleaning were you can even tell I spilled ink on it mostly on the outside, with some getting onto the platten sponge, I went ahead and shot a video on Printing on CANSON Watercolor paper on that printer with zero issues.
Before the move I actually checked the nozzles and all was fine and I even printed something and nothing appeared to be wrong.
Moved three feet and at a right angle, printer was OFF during that and now Nothing!!!!!
So I am at a loss.
I have the service manual and adjustment program and if it is something mechanical, that's were I hope some of you might be able to help!
Well that's basically it for now. Hopefully I can come up with something as this was an excellent printer in great shape with hardly any work under its belt.
Thanks in advance!
Joe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-FnsrCzFL0
 

stratman

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I do not know Epsons, so grain of salt with the following.

If not already tried, turn off printer, unplug all cables on the printer (power, data), let sit a few minutes to discharge any potential charge that would keep an error in RAM alive, then connect power cable, power back up and try a nozzle check without the data cable plugged in.

Make sure all cartridges/print head are securely plugged in.

Could one bad cartridge cause a complete loss of printing?

Could there have been a "short" created during the move, such as by static electricity or a surge through the power cable? Notice any burned or discolored areas in the printer or smell something burned?

Is it possible a piece of paper is lodged inside preventing ink transfer to new page?

Warranty??? Maybe try a call to Epson Tech Support in the long shot they will help.

Hope you get that magnificent printer back in operation!
 

jtoolman

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Tried that but no joy. I do not have anything blocking anything that I can see of think of.
As I said, I printed a perfectl nozzle check just the other night as I was doing nozzle checks on the whole bunch of printers and all was fine. Now nothing is printing.
I am baffled
Joe
 

Ink stained Fingers

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Does it come up at all at power on - or could it be the power supply - a fuse - something like that ?
 

The Hat

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Hi Jose,
Firstly condolences for the premature loss of your beautiful workhorse, lets hope you can get an answer to this unusual problem and resurrect the beast again.

Your recent ink spillage accident could be one possibility, because the very last Epson printer that I owned had a magenta cartridge leak slowly which I failed to notice, the result was I never got another sheet to print again.

I found later that the data cable had shorted out the head after it got wet from the ink leakage, now I am not saying this is what happened to your, so lets hope not, but it’s something you could look into and check.
Have you ever noticed its always the darn Magenta ink that gets the blame.. :barnie
 

mikling

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The 3800 has a lot of feedback sensors and codes and most expected failures will produce a code on the main panel.
The most likely error is that there is an unexpected condition that has surfaced that is not an expected error and thus something simple.....the engineers overlooked this. A connection that is so obvious has come loose or broken or is intermittent. At this stage the cover has to come off. I would check to see how the power is sent to the printhead nozzles or the power supply to the nozzle drive circuitry.
My guess is that the power supply to the nozzle driver area needs to be checked. On other Epsons, if the printhead is not connected properly an error code is generated and I would expect the same here. Check the power line configuration on the schematic in the manual.
If you disconnected the power cord during the move...I would take a look at the power supply driving the driver circuit. A likely scenario that inrush current that occurs on powering up( plugging in) again took down a weak component in the chain. The sensor circuitry senses power and correct voltage but it droops during use ( when the sensor is not invoked) and thus the sensor never detects it... or something like that.

Unless it is something obvious sounds like a circuit board is required from a dead 3800/replacement and the printhead parameters needs to be reentered and machine. At this point, it is likely worth saving the 3800 despite the cost to do so.
 
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mikling

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Just took a quick look at the 3800 manual. When I go to the appendix, in the last few pages, you can see a schematic of the printer in block form. Looking at the line, I see lots of separate ground connections. Like I said before, what has happened is an unanticipated fault condition which can be easy to fix or hard to fix. If the main panel is light up and all indicators appear normal then we will assume the PS is good.

The manual I have appears incomplete in the appendix. However, the first thing if a DIY fix is decided is to remove and reconnect each and every connector relating to the printhead. If you have electronic contact cleaner, use it at the same time. If you have a more complete manual, you will be able to identify which connectors are related to the printhead. With any luck, it will be successful. That is the first step anyways and quite likely what the Epson tech would perform first anyways.
 

jtoolman

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The printer powers up as normal. In fact the sequence of sounds and the time it takes to go from OFF to "Let's Print" is identical to my other older but working 3800.

The is not indication on the LCD of anything being wrong. No error codes. The cart ink levels show up on the LCD and also on the printer dirver on the PC.

I can send jobs to it as normal. Nothing prints though.

I replaced the refillables with a new set of OEM carts and new OEM Maintanance cart. ALl appears perfect. Just nothing prints.

I unplugged all cords. Waited 30 minutes. Reinstalled the power plug and did not connect the USB. Tried printing a nozzle check after normal pwoer up sequence. Nothing prints. Tried a test print from the LCD, nothing prints.

The move was really Not much of a move. I simply slid the printer cart accorss the back of the room for three feet. Not plugs were removed of disrupted during this repositioning of the printer.

I unlocked the print head by powering down, pwoering back up and pulling the power plug as soon oas the print head moved. Slid the head manually to the left to check the flat data cable, ink ribbon combo and it appears normal. There is no ink anywhere inside the printer compartment except for a very small area on the platen and sponge.

A day before I moved the printer on the cart, as I was in the process to rearrange my print room, I actually printed a nozzle check and a print. It was printing flawlessly.

I have to say that I did not print anything for at least one day after sliding the cart over 3 feet.

I was in the process of preparing to do a video on how to fill my refillable carts I modified for top refilling and that is when I did the nozzle check and XIP!!!!!

Needles to say my plans did a 180!

I've done everything I can think of other than pulling up my service manual and beging to tak the printer appart. But I really do not wnat to dive into that unless I possitively have to.

Mike, I will try to do some of things you've suggested and let you know.

Thanks

Joe
 

mikling

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Joe, we can be pretty sure it is electronic in nature, and that would include electrical contacts. Hoping that is the cause. No need to waste time swapping carts etc......reinstalling drivers etc. As indicated the 3800 has a LOT of error codes, so this fault is one that is totally unexpected so it is either obvious or hard to diagnose. I hope it is the former.
Well, four months ago, I finally figured out what was going on a disk drive I had. About a couple years ago, I replaced a hard drive that seemed erratic. Since it was a few years old...that could be normal. So lately, I reconnected it and threw all kinds of tests at it and everything looked normal and it passed EVERY test. Good to go. I used it and created a large virtual single drive for backup. A couple weeks later, the virtual drive was unreadable!. I performed all kinds of swaps etc and retested and everything was good again. Plugged it back in, and it was good again. Then a day later, it went offline. I eventually found out what the problem was ... a flakey SATA drive cable! This cable was intermittent. ..the continuity break was occurring internally. If it REALLY was broken and was obvious, I would have been on to it years ago. But the fact it kept working again most of the time threw curves. A replacement cable that cost less than a dollar was the problem. Grrr.
 
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