Epson R1800 no longer printing.

[dillman]

As I said in my member introduction, I only wish I had found this forum under happier circumstances, or at least before my interactions with this printer in question. I'm on the road a lot...A LOT, and my printers sit, and dry out, and usually I can coax them back into printing with a little head cleaning and wasted ink. This time it was taking a long time to get any joy with this R1800, I had tried some Simple Green on a paper towel sitting under the head over night. That usually loosens up any gunk or dried ink on he surface of the head. This time it was still printing only a little bit out of a couple nozzles..

Here's where the trouble starts, I believe. I took the head out and placed it into an alcohol and water solution, in a container so that only the head itself was soaking in the solution. I let it soak overnight, and dried it off as best as I could, and dabbed the ink off of the head surface repeatedly until it was clean enough to reinstall. I pulled all the plugs out of the top of the ink cartridges so that gravity could help pull ink back down into the head and manifold. I have a CISS system on this printer, and most of my printers. They are setup for dye sublimation. I let it sit for a few hours, and when I came back I fired up the printer. I can't recall if I tried printing an image or if I ran the head cleaner first, but I get nothing from the print head at this time. I've ran a few cleanings, nozzle checks, etc, and it just wont print anything. I've watched a lot of videos, and read as much as I could, and none of it bodes well. I've been anxiously, and hesitantly as well to post here and get the news from the knowledgeable members here. So, there it is...such as it is.. :-(

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The R1800 is a pretty old model - almost 20 years , you might have a printhead problem or the driver circuit on the motherboard is defect or the flat cable connection to the printhead has a problem. But I'm not able to get into more detail, you may need to find a service manual for the R1800.

 

[dillman]

The R1800 is a pretty old model - almost 20 years , you might have a printhead problem or the driver circuit on the motherboard is defect or the flat cable connection to the printhead has a problem. But I'm not able to get into more detail, you may need to find a service manual for the R1800.

I appreciate your reply. The printhead could definitely be the culprit. Explore with me the scenario in which the driver circuit would "become" defective? It was at least printing when I took it off. Is there something on the head itself that could become shorted out from the liquid? I would love to find a service manual for my Epson R1800. Any ideas where to find such a beast?

On a side note, I noticed you are in Germany. I took a course in school for Commercial Printing a long, long, long time ago, and my workstation was on what was to become my favorite printer of all time. The Heidelberg Windmill. I only got to work on it for one school year, but I printed a lot of jobs on that beauty in that one year. We had a type maker with molten metal in it to press out our type. My instructor was a very dear man, I enjoyed learning from him very much. I didn't follow it as a career path, and its one of my regrets in life.

credit for the photo from the wiki page.
By Hoylen - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70547575

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

https://www.2manuals.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=642

- There might be other free sources

- There could be a broken/missing contact at the flat cable connection - disabling the firing of the nozzles - like a missing ground connection, or there could be a blown fuse on the controller board or a chip just failed after 20 years ... or ....

 

[dillman]

https://www.2manuals.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=642

- There might be other free sources

- There could be a broken/missing contact at the flat cable connection - disabling the firing of the nozzles - like a missing ground connection, or there could be a blown fuse on the controller board or a chip just failed after 20 years ... or ....

Thank you. Wow, there is a LOT of information contained in that manual. I'll have to do a lot of reading thru that. I understand there are many different possibilities as to the problem. I'm looking to see if I can find an affordable replacement head, but it would be nice to know if that is NOT the problem before buying a new one..lol.

Thanks so much for your insight. Much appreciated.