When Printers Attack

We have 3-1/2-year old Epson Stylus Photo C82 printer. It's a good small business printer, prints great photos, cost us $130. We like it.

This week it was printing poorly, and no amount of print head cleaning made it better. I encountered the same problem in the ink nozzle cleaning system a year ago, and I found service instructions in an Epson C82 disassembly manual online. As of last night, that manual has twice saved me from having to replace the printer.



A quick primer on printer cleaning: Inkjet printers clean their print heads by shooting ink through the nozzles until the nozzles are clear. (It wastes a lot of ink, but to my knowledge, no manufacturer has found a more effective way to do it.) Where does all that ink go? Epson printers have their own disposal system - a "sewer" in the bottom of the printer housing. It's a small ink pool surrounded by a bed of wicking material to absorb the ink. (Not unlike a holding tank and drainfield.)

Last year, the ink drawing tube somehow disconnected from the nozzle cleaning system underneath the print head. Without the drawing tube, the printer can't draw ink out of the cartridge for cleaning. Thanks to my handy printer disassembly manual, I managed to reconnect the tube and fix the printer.

This week, the same thing happened, so I opened it up and reconnected the tube, but after reassembling the printer, the tube kept popping off again. The fourth time I reconnected it, I got more aggressive and put makeshift hose clamps on the ink tubes to hold the nozzle cleaning system together. I reassembled the printer and started a cleaning cycle. I heard a slurping sound followed by a sloshing sound, and the print quality was worse than ever. I reopened the printer and ran another cleaning cycle, watching and listening closely to find the source of the sounds.

Then it happened: the sewer backed up. *BLAM!* The ink drain tube exploded off and blasted me in the face with a spray of ink. It also did a number on my clothes, the table, the wall, and the printer, of course. It sounded like this.

The cause of the mishap was a clogged sewer line. It may even be that last year's problem was a warning sign of the impending breakdown. I removed the entire printer chassis and opened up the sewer. I cleaned out about 6 ounces of thick semi-dried ink paste, then roto-rootered the sewer line with a thin wire and hot water.

I reassembled the printer once more and printed some photos to test the fix. Beautiful. I uttered a nerdy grunt of satisfaction, cleaned up my workspace and my face, and finished up around 3:00 AM.

In the end, I lost sleep and my fingers will be stained for weeks. You might argue it was not worth it. Perhaps. But for the savings in replacement cost and the sheer geeky thrill of fixing a high-tech appliance yourself, it was a small price to pay.

I had two screws left when I was done. A gift from the hardware fairy.