Cleaning Gunk out of Epson 2200

[misterpatrick]

Hello all,

I have an Epson 2200 and it has been freaking out lately. It will start spewing ink everywhere. I've heard that this can be caused by dust and other dirt on or near the printing head. How can I clean the head of gunk other than running the software head cleaner. The heads are not clogged, anything but, ink is flowing freely.

Basically what happens is things are printing fine, then the printer will start making more noise than usual, like the printer head is hitting the parking side harded. It will start to whine and I'll get all sorts of weird color streaks and solid blocks of color and ink everywhere. I'll clean, print an image and again halfway through, the process repeats itself.

I'm printing from OS X/Pohotoshop CS2 and FireWire but I've had this trouble printing to the USB from Windows as well.

Also the sponges and landing pad (or whatever it's called) are saturated with ink as so much ink spills when the printer freaks out. Can these be removed and cleaned and if so, how?

I have contacted Epson and they said the issue was "Hardware Error", big help that. Their suggestion was to take it to a repair center which will most likely charge more than the printer is worth.


Thanks!

[vincent355]

...
Also the sponges and landing pad (or whatever it's called) are saturated with ink as so much ink spills when the printer freaks out. Can these be removed and cleaned and if so, how?...

Thanks!

Not to Hijack Patrick....I'm wondering the same thing about these.

V

[websnail]

It sounds a lot like your inks have essentially coagulated in the headclean and park area and as a result your cleaning system is not doing its job.. In fact it sounds a lot like it's actually doing more damage than good.

There's a few things that could be going on here.

1. The cleaning pump (the thing that draws ink from your printhead when a cleaning routine is started) may have failed in which case you're plumb out of luck.

2. The tube from the cleaning pump to the park pads/cleaning sponge may have come away from the pump in which case it needs reattaching which in turn mean you need a service manual and a lot of technical knowhow to get it fixed

3. The tube may have become clogged with ink in which case you will probably need to consider how best to unclog it.. I'd check out the comp.periphs.printers forum and ask for help on there as well as on stevesforums.com as there's a few more people with 2200's on there too.

4. Finally it could be that your absorbant waste ink pads are pretty much filled up in which case your options are to get the printer serviced or to consider finding out how to redirect your waste ink to an external tank. I'm not sure how easy that would be with the 2200 but if you cast around you may find someone else has done it.


Not much help I know but hopefully somewhere to start..