Epson R1800 problem

Help! My Epson R1800 which has given me good service for about two years developed an alarming symptom last night. After printing several 4 x 6 “proofs,” in the middle of a print the head carriage went all the way to the left and stayed there while making a horrible noise, much like gears failing to mesh. I dived for the power switch, and the head then very slowly moved to the right and stopped entirely.

I shut the printer down and a few minutes powered it back up, it went through its power on sequence normally. Another attempt to print resulted in the same problem.

Epson’s online troubleshooting doesn’t cover anything like this. I’ve sent them an email but haven’t heard back.

Has anyone had anything like this happen? Any suggestions for fixes? Am I at the tender mercies of an Epson service center? Is my printer wrecked?

I had a cheapo Epson that did exactly the same thing. It ended up in the bin! You may well have to send it back to Epson for a service.

Sorry!

Best wishes, Kris.

Thanks for the quick reply, Kris. If I could get hold of a service manual I'd have a go at it, since I used to do the majority of my car service.

There's this web site which might help

http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums

But I'm sure there's another one that's really helpful - with luck it will come back to me. You may find that you only have to clean a plastic strip the printer uses to position the head.

Mike

Many thanks, Mike!

I suppose that the plastic strip you refer to if dirty/greasy might allow the head to lose its indexing, and the noise might be the printer attempting to restore it. I'm checking into the site you furnished.

Mike, I found this site http://www.2manuals.com/ which offers service manuals to download for a variety of printers at reasonable prices. With a little luck I might have the old girl up and running again.

Many thanks to you and the other respondents.

A quick look through Photo-i forums may help?

Unlocker, I thought I'd posted a comment, but I guess not. Thanks for the suggestion. As you might expect I've sent my query to all the fora of which I am a member. I hope to avoid sending a $500 printer to the knackers - if that is the term you folk use over there for the junk man or the recyclers!

"Knacker's yard"

Best wishes, Kris.

Epson have an ONLINE CHAT facility where they will talk you through diagnosing a problems and potential fixes.

However, checking the Epson website does not give an option in the US. You could always use the European service tomorrow.

I had an epson do that. I think it was a900 photo. I let it finish making horrible noises, it fixed itself and went on for another year or two....