My brother gave it to me as a gift maybe 6 months ago (he bought it at the Apple store near my house if that’s relevant. I don’t know if he or I still have the receipt.)
It was working fine until this week. I came back from Thanksgiving (I was gone for over a week) and I tried to print something. The print head moved as if it were printing, but when the page came out, it had only a few faint lines on it. I tried this again several times, with pretty much the same result. One time there was a small smudge of black ink on the page.
So, I replaced the ink cartridge and tried again (even though the monitor indicated that there was still ink in it.) Same result. I tried a nozzle check, and it prints only a very few, very faint lines. I ran the head cleaner several times, with no noticeable improvement.
Then I turned the printer off and left it off overnight. This morning I again tried the nozzle check and the head cleaner several times, with no improvement.
Epson printers often have the printhead built in to the printer, rather than on the cartridge, like most ink jets. These heads are prone to clogging, and replacement is the only real option. If it’s still under warranty, you can take it where he bought it and see if they’ll replace it for you.
I talked with Epson customer service, and have to say I was extremely impressed with how they handled this. After going through several rounds of cleaning the heads (with no improvement) the rep said that they would send me a new printer (and pay for me to ship back the old one).
He also said that it was best to turn the printer off whenever I’m not using it. Apparently leaving the power on lets air into the nozzles, which leads to clogging.
FG I actually replaced the black ink cartridge and that did not help. The previous cartridge was the one that came with the printer: it had been in there for about 7 months. The replacement cartridge was an Epson cartridge.
Yeah, Epson replaced a printer for me the same way. I have also found out that generic cartridges will not work , at least in my printer, a 660. My printer has been in storage for months. I have a small laser printer now. I’m gonna fire the Epson up and see what happens. I will not be surprised if the heads are all gunked up. I’ll let you know.