Epson Printer Problems and Fixes

Epson's inkjets use pigment ink that dries in the nozzles if the printer sits unused, and that single fact explains most Epson complaints. A printer that worked fine last month and now prints banded, faded or missing colours has almost certainly dried nozzles rather than empty tanks, and a nozzle check pattern from the printer's own menu will show it plainly: the pattern comes out with gaps in the same places every time. Head cleaning cycles clear it, though they use a surprising amount of ink, which is why running two or three and then leaving the printer overnight works better than running six in a row.

EcoTank models change the economics rather than the mechanism. The tanks are refilled from bottles instead of replaced, so ink is cheap, but the same nozzles dry the same way, and a printer left idle for months still needs the same cleaning. Printing something in colour once a week costs far less ink than a cleaning cycle does.

Epson error codes are lettered rather than numbered, E-01 and similar, and they are deliberately vague: most of them mean the printer has stopped and wants to be switched off and on. That is worth doing properly, from the wall rather than a switched strip, because the code latches and a genuine power cycle is what clears the latch.