Epson CX4200 head parking area - picture

[korny]

I just wanted to share a picture of an Epson CX4200. This was a printer a customer gave me yesterday since it was "broken". Terrible printouts with some "smeared goo" on the paper plus clogged nozzles of course. I wanted to test and tinker with a consumer all pigment (Durabrite) since I didn't own one.

This is an cheapie, old 4 color consumer pigment printer. I would say the nozzle check showed 60% of the lines. Yellow was close to totally gone.

Great advice from Mikling meant that I was able to resuscitate it from the dead. Basically cleaned up with Windex and lots of Q-tips. I owe him!

Im curious though - what does the second arrow from the left points at? (*after* the rubberblades) A column of 4 squares? (3 big and one small at the top) Whats the function? I cleared out quite a bit of gooey ink (=thick!) from there. You guys are the experts.

I put four arrows on the screenshot since I'm guessing that its 4 "service areas" in a row I'm seeing..

 

[websnail]

That is the resting pad/cleaning station...

It forms a seal around the printhead nozzles (hence the rubber skirt) and allows the waste pump to suck ink out of the nozzles and into the waste pads.

If that was all clogged up and piled with gunk then chances are the waste tube was clogged at some point, the pump dead or the waste tube was no longer attached to the underside of the pad itself.

I'm going with the whole thing being clogged silly with ink that had either leaked out of poorly sealed cartridges or due to a clog further into the tubing... Either way, a good catch if you've gotten it going again.

Hope that helps with the query...