Would there be potential damage to a Stylus 1400 if it was powered on without the printhead connected?

[MooreDesignLabs]

Lately I've been trying to make sure the printheads going back in are nice and dry before installing. And remembering to put the same ink cartridges back in before it was powered off. I ran into a unique scenario today and was wondering if anyone could tell me what happened. I received a mint condition (cosmetically) Stylus 1400 in the box. It's pristine. The previous owner only used Epson ink and barely used it. I assumed it would need the head cleaned so I removed it and started that process.

I remembered that I had another printhead that I removed from an Artisan 1430 printer that was dry, clean, and ready for install. So I chose to install that printhead with the original ink. Bad idea. The printer for some reason refused to power up. No lights, sounds, nothing. I removed the printhead quickly and powered the printer on to see if it would light up. It lit up with no printhead connected. I immediately unplugged it and finished installing the original printhead back in.

The printer powers up and everything now except it's doing that thing where it says there are no cartridges in unless you do it one at a time in non-sequential order. And it's not accepting any combination I've tried yet. Could I have fried a ribbon cable by turning it on without it being connected to the printhead but still connected to the motherboard?

 

[Smile]

The motherboard should have fuses check service manual. No print head should not short anything so no damage, but epson ribbon cables are very bad, usually single use. Check ribbon cable are they perfect?

 

[MooreDesignLabs]

Thank you so much for letting me know that! I had no idea the ribbon cables were so fragile for Epson. The ribbon cables looked decent. They were never removed before, I could confirm that. I have a couple 10 fuses coming to see if I can swap out the F1 part of the mainboard. We'll see! I'll be sure to update when they arrive.