Faulty print head movement

[woolyhead]

Hi. I've got an interesting fault and I'd like someone's help with it, please. At power up the carriage on my Epson DX4400 moves to the left as it should but does so very slowly, as it shouldn't. It then returns quickly and stops short of where it should be. With the belt removed the carriage runs free and the motor turns both ways properly, so the fault seems to be in the motor's driver. Has anyone any ideas about fixing this circuitry?

 

[PeterBJ]

My guess is that it could also be a dirty timing strip. I've just fixed a HP PSC 750 for a friend. It behaved very much like your Epson. Print head movement was slow and intermittent, and sometimes the printer would stop in the middle of a print job.

Cleaning the timing strip with a little window cleaner on a piece of tissue paper made the printer OK again. Without proper impulses from the timing strip the carriage driver system cannot know the exact position of the print head.

Good luck in troubleshooting

Peter.