red HORIZONTAL LINES where none should be with epson photo printer

[zvonkokracun]

thanks to clever people on this forum i am now a wiser guy ! having only joined a few days ago i have what i think is a common problem. i have been printing a lot in the last few days 300 A5's + A4's and now i get red horizontal lines where there should be none. i did all the usual things, cleaning nozzles ( maybe too much ) running cleaning cartridges. changing cartridges. switching printer off and on. strangely the lines are still there ?
ps. i am still on cartridges nor on cis

 

[Smile]

thanks to clever people on this forum i am now a wiser guy ! having only joined a few days ago i have what i think is a common problem. i have been printing a lot in the last few days 300 A5's + A4's and now i get red horizontal lines where there should be none. i did all the usual things, cleaning nozzles ( maybe too much ) running cleaning cartridges. changing cartridges. switching printer off and on. strangely the lines are still there ?
ps. i am still on cartridges nor on cis

What printer do you use you forgot to mention it?

 

[Trigger 37]

zvonkokracun,... After printing that many pages, I'm sure you have lots of ink on the bottom of your printhead. The Epson printhead are not typically removable, so you have to hand clean the bottom.

Take a paper towel and fold it so it starts at 1/2" wide and 9" long. Do this by folding one side over and over till you have a long strip about 1/2" to 3/4" wide. Open the cover of your printer and wait till the printhead stops moving, then pull the power cord out. Now you are able to move the printhead far to the left. Lay the folded paper towel in the space where the printhead travels and tuck it in such that the printhead can pass over it. Use a syringe with distilled water or filtered water and wet the first 2" of the towel. Move the printhead till it just covers the wet area and let it set to 1 minute. Wet the next 2" and repeat. Keep doing this until you have gone the entire length. By now the towel will be black with ink. Move the head to the center and lift both ends of the towel and gently move the towel back and forth.

Pull the towel out. If you think you may have more ink still on the printhead, get a new towel and do all of it again. Then print a test page and see if you have fixed the problem.

 

[zvonkokracun]

thank you both, it is a 1290, the lines are exactly 1 pt. thick (the same as you would get if you designed a 1 pt. border around a photograph) and i get about 25 horizontal ones on an A4 sheet.
i will try and do the cleaning as prescribed. can i realy move the printhead manually without breaking something?
thanks again

 

[zvonkokracun]

i did it and it was surprisingly easy to move the printhead. there was lots and lots of ink. now it is much cleaner, but the lines are still there... just red lines !
even if i print with the black cartrige only !!? i guess that does not sound too good ?
has it come to the end of it's life?

 

[fotofreek]

ZV - don't give up yet - write to Arthur Entlich. His email address is e-printerhelp@mvps.org . Describe your problem and the model of printer and request his Epson head cleaning manual. He will email it to you - no charge and no spam. He's just a very helpful guy.

 

[mikling]

Do you get the red lines on a simple nozzle check? Are you getting red lines or magenta lines? I suspect magenta. Is there any possibility of scanning the nozzle check output?

 

[Trigger 37]

zvonkokracun,... You need to give us some more information about the red lines. Print a half page of black text and then scan it and upload it to this forum and paste it in your next post. This will show us how often the lines are there and give us much more information. If you don't have a scanner, just describe the half page and ever red line that prints and if they cover the entire page or start and stop.

I orginally though your problem was all the ink on the bottom of your printhead, but it would leave a black line for every pass of the head over the paper. One other thing to check is to pull the colored ink cart and see if there is a puddle of magenta ink at the printhead. This would indicate a leaking ink cart. You did say you changed ink carts and the problem was still there. If there still is a puddle of ink, you could clean it out and try again.

 

[zvonkokracun]

hi, yes there is, are, one or two lines on the nozzle check, either top or bottom, of nozzle check pattern. pattern always perfect, by the way. and yes the lines are not red, but magenta. thanks also for the e-printerhelp@mvps.org address. at this point hope is all i have got left.
i'll find a scanner and post it as soon as i can.
meanwhile i am doing many many test prints and occasionally i get a good print !!? only to be disappointed with the next print and lines reappear.... why is life sooo hard ?
zk

 

[mikling]

It ain't clogging. So let's that over with now. The perfect nozzle pattern proves this.

You probably have an errant fibre or threadlike something that has somehow lodged itself near a nozzle or just stuck to the bottom of the head and occasionally drags over the paper. Never ran into that problem before. Trigger cleaning method might be able to dislodge it but use a lint free material or you'll get another one lodged in there. Try a high grade synthetic chamois. The other way would be to use some type of tacky tape to see if you could get it to adhere to the tape and then remove it. BUT be careful you don't want the tape to stick to the nozzle plate.

One day it may somehow dislodge itself or just stay in there. It's hard to say.