Broken Printer

[1st Gen]

My printer took a crap! I was real happy with the Epson CX 5400 that my wife bought me for Fathers Day last year up until about a month ago. I’m finding out now that the printer heads gets clogged up with dry ink over time and will no longer print. Unlike other printers that replace the printer head every time you replace the ink, the Epson just changes the ink cartridge. (good and bad imo)

So now I have a printer that doesn’t work. I went here, http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/kits/Epson/K70
And found out that there is a kit that I can buy to physically clean the head, but there is risk as well. Apparently damaging the delicate workings of the printer head by forcing solvent through the pluming is a definite possibility. Still, it’s cheaper than buying a whole new printer, if it works that is.

I have to admit that I got really spoiled by having this printer, copier, scanner combination. If I have to take the thing apart down to it’s bare wires, I’m going to try and fix it. If I can't fix it, then I'm going to be looking for a new printer with these features.

And no, I still don’t want the over priced extended warranty!

[1st Gen]

Here’s an update on the printer work.
I read that the durobrite ink that the printer uses will sometimes get clogged in the head. One forum suggested that a glycol based solvent would be okay to clean it with. So, after already looking around a bit, I decided that deicer would work for the job. I figured that the likelihood of residue would be pretty slim given it’s intended use of deicing windshields. I took the whole printer apart with the help from a how too on the above mentioned web site. I took the printer head all apart and sprayed almost the whole can of deicer through the thing until it was all clean. I put it back together confident that I had done a thorough job of cleaning the head and lines that manage the ink. I even replaced all the ink cartages in the hopes that fresh ink would flow more freely.

All I did was spend a lot of time and money on something I could have replaced for a hundred bucks, and it still doesn’t work.

I wonder if it needs to be primed or something to get the ink started in the lines?
I'll give it one last shot before I turn it into a planter.

[jnorion]

I've never had any luck repairing printers... I just bought a new one the last time mine died.

[1st Gen]

I don't know anybody that has fixed their own printer, which is all the more reason to try.

What kind of printer did you end up with if you don't mind me asking?

[jnorion]

I have a Brother MFC-210C... it's a combo printer/scanner/fax/copier with memory card drives built in. It's really nice as far as features go, but I'm not too sure about quality. I've heard mixed things about them. But it was ~$70 from Fred Meyer a few months ago, so it was hard to pass up.