Dead Printer

[Tina_B]

I have or had a Epson R300 that has been on its last leg for a while. Last night it was churning away with some printing and a error came up and said your printer has reached the end of its life and went down. No power will turn on just sits there dead! Anyone ever had this error pop up? Just kind of weird.
Tina B

[TonyW]

Check out the post by Tonia on this forum (which almost sounds like a PE delete preferences trick) :

http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/28216

Sounds there might be hope for a revival yet. Let us know if it works. My R300 is gathering dust in the basement but you never know I might want to bring it back to life again

Tony

[Tina_B]

Tony
I followed the link you suggested and read the posts there. I followed the simplist thing they said to do and it worked. I held down the power, the stop button and the maintence key all at the same time for 10 seconds. It rumbled and groaned and then said to to turn off the power and back on again. I have not yet tried to print anything but there is life in the old girl.
thanks for your help. I am happy and sad all at the same time. I was sad my trusty Epson died and glad that maybe I would get a new printer. I will keep a new one in mind and see how many more miles I can get out of it.

Tina B

[TonyW]

Good to hear the old girl has come to life. I might have to resurrect my old guy (mine's male, your's female apparently )

I upgraded mine when I moved to a new computer and Windows 7 thinking that the R300 wouldn't be supported - turns out it would have worked but I also did want to print bigger pics so that's my excuse for banishing the venerable old guy to the basement.

Tony

[Tina_B]

I have a boat load of old stuff in the basemnt that will go to recycle and I will no longer have a old printer, computer cemetary down there.
I did a test print and all looks good.
Tina B

[Joe_Kostoss]

On many Epson printers, there is an ink storage bin that catches the overspray ink such as from printing borderless or clearing clogged nozzles. When these bins become full, they must be replaced, hence the message. In most printers, except for the very high end printers, these tanks are not replaceable by the user, but must be taken to a service shop for repairs. For the more inexpensive printers, the cost of service is usually more than the purchase of an equivalent new printer, especially when you consider that a new printer comes with a full complement of ink tanks. The method you described is probably temporary at best. For more information on your printer, check out the Epson service site at:
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/s...view&oid=26322

[Tina_B]

Joe
I read the information on the site suggested and found the exact thing that was happening. After I finally got it started again there was ink on the leading edges of the paper and probably from the ink pads being full. It just may be time to replace the thing. I would hate to ruin prints with ink on the edges. It would probably cost more to service the printer than what it is worth. I will run it until the ink runs out and not refill it again. I will just use it for every day printing and process photos at the local print shop until I get a new one. I love the R300 and will see what I can find that compares to it. Any Suggestions?
Tina B

[Joe_Kostoss]

Tina, it would be difficult for me to choose a printer for you. It all depends on what your needs are, your budget and the amount of desk space that you have. I would definitely stick with Epson, they are the top of the line.

The R300 was a 6 color printer, so I would not get anything less. I have the R-1900 wide format, which is now replaced by the R2000; I absolutely love this printer. It is big so you need lots of desk real estate. It uses Epson's Ultra Chrome Pigment inks in 6 colors plus a separate Matte Black and a gloss optimizer. If you want the best in glossy photos, this is the one to get. I like it because the Matte Black and Photo Black are both loaded in the printer and it chooses which to use based on if you are printing glossy or matte. Some printers require that you switch tanks each time you change, which causes the system to re-charge, thereby wasting ink.

I see that the R2000 is on sale for $100 off the standard price, which brings it to $399. If you subtract the cost of the 8 ink tanks that come with it, the printer itself is around $275.

[Tina_B]

Jo
Thanks for the printer info, that is the kind of information I need to help me make a choice. I do agree that Epson is by far the best that I have ever used. I will just have to shop around and see what I can get for a fair price. I don't need a wide format printer, well I have never had one so really don't know if it is very cost effictive to print larger prints on my own. Is it best to have a photo only printer or are those all in one printers just as good? It seems to me that the more junk you add on to a printer the more that can go wrong.
Tina B

[Joe_Kostoss]

Tina,

The All-In-One printers will do a decent job on photos and are probaby just as reliable in spite of all the added features; howerver, they are geared more towards general use and do not have the power for truly beautiful images as they usually have only 4 colors, namely CMYK.

I actually have 2 printers, my R-1900, which I use strictly for photos. At the time I bought this printer, I already had an Epson All-In-One that was, and still is, a great working printer. I use it for all my other printing and occasionally for scanning documents into the computer for e-mail or whatever else I need them for or for copying documents. Epson's All-In-One printers are so inexpensive that it pays for me to use it for general printing rather than putting the R-1900 through the wear and tear of general printing on plain paper, with all the potential problems of paper dust accumulation and paper jams from using such light weight paper.

I now print almost all of my images on A3 (11.7" x 16.5") size paper. After trying the larger size, I was hooked. An 8 x 10 print is nice, but the A3 print is 10 times better. I would not go back to the smaller prints.