Epson Printhead Repair

Disclaimer

Warning: The following instructions are given without any warranty. They are not necessarily complete or correct. Do not do any of the following steps if you are not sure of what you are doing. You might damage your printer and you WILL lose your warranty. Everything you do is on your own risk. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at mk(at)mk-stuff(dot)de.

The patient

My 6 year old Epson Stylus Color 460. Well, it is old, loud and has only 720 dpi, but I like it because I virtually print for free. The last time I ordered ink, I got 7 black and 3 colour ink cartridges for only 12 Euro.

The problem

After some weeks of not printing in colour the prints looked very bad. I tried the printer internal cleaning program, which did not improve anything. Then I installed the Epson's Windows drivers, which have an additional cleaning program built in. The prints got better, but, even after several tries, still not perfect.

Disassembling

• a crosstip screwdriver
• some rags
• hot water
• two bowls
• a few cotton swabs

At first you have to remove the upper part of the casing. There are just four screws which mount this part. Once you removed them you can pull up this part.

Without the upper part of the casing you can see much more. You can see that the printhead is mounted on a rod. To remove the printhead you got to remove the rod, which can only be done at the right side.
Remove the spring between the blue lever and the metal. Next you pull out the blue lever and remove the upper screw from the white plastic thing.

Now you connect the printer to the outlet and turn it on. The printhead will move out of its parking position. Pull the plug while it is moving.
Loose the tooth belt and pull out the rod (a bit tricky). Mind the foam rubber between the rod and the ink cartridges which will most likely fall off. Do not clean this piece of foam rubber! Do not remove the cable and try to not remove the tooth belt.

Repair

Put the printhead in hot water. A lot of ink will come out. I had to change the water several times. Leave it in the water for at least one hour.

In the meantime you can clean the rest of the printer. At the parking position there are three pieces of foam rubber (one and two above each other). You can remove them and put them into another bowl of water. A lot of ink will come out. Clean the other parts with cotton swabs and hot water. Clean the plastic parts with a wet rag.

The result

My hands are dirty and I don't have any cotton swabs any more, but after all... Success! My printer looks like new and prints perfectly fine.

This procedure is known to work on the following printers...

• Epson Stylus Color 460
• Epson Stylus Color 580
• Epson PM 670C

If you succeed in repairing your printer with the help of this howto, please let me know so I can add your printer to the list.

This article is listed at...

• http://repair4printer.org/