My EPSON Stylus Photo 750 printer only makes strips !!

[Jud]

Hi,
I'm using Win98 SE and USB 1.1 in an old PENTIUM II 300-500 Mhz DELL
laptop.

Our daughter borrowed the printer a few years ago for school. She
returned it complaining it just made strips, no characters. I have
two problems:

1 - I no longer have the Users Manual and can't seem to find one I can
read online.

2 - The printer is indeed only making strips. They are composed as
follows:

1/8" Gray strip---------------
1/8" Dark Gray strip-------
1/4" Black strip========
1/8" Dark Gray strip-------
1/8" Gray strip---------------

Each line creates one of these 3/4" strips as long as the actual line
would be. Each strip seems to be centered where the actual line would
be. As a result, they all overlap and create large Black blocks with
Gray top and bottom edges. Soaking up ink!!

I have the printer set to only print Black. The strips seem to be
printed clearly and without any smearing.

The first print job was done through Visual FoxPro 6 which "set the
printer to ARIAL 12 BOLD". A second try was from Notepad, which
produced the same results.

I am under the impression that the pixel by pixel information to form
a particular Font comes from the computer and the printer just does
what it's told. Isn't that the way it works?

Any help with this problem and/or finding an online User Manual would
be greatly appreciated.

Jud

[Mike Rechtien]

Depending on how old that printer is, the heads have probably clogged up.  This is quite common on Epson inkjet printers, and is why I don't use *any* printer with a fixed print head (like the Epson's).

Mike

[Jud]

Hi Mike,

On Mar 22, 3:24 pm, "Mike Rechtien" <m...@sinep.gotdns.com> wrote:
> Depending on how old that printer is, the heads have probably clogged up.

I don't think the heads are clogged because the printer produces
strips of perfectly uniform Gray and then perfectly clean Black strips
next to them. I would think that clogged heads would produce uneven,
streaked and blotchy strips.

Tony,who is an MS MVP Printing/Imaging, over in
"comp.periphs.printers" said:

"If the Printer operation check fails then I suspect the printer has
suffered an electronic failure. I seriously doubt it is worth
repairing."

Well, I'm a Do-It-Yourselfer, and if anyone knows what board I could
replace, where I could find a Service or Repair Manual online and a
source for EPSON parts, the rest of the printer seems to be in good
mechanical shape.

That may be a lot to ask, but it certainly would be appreciated.

Thanks for your efforts.

Jud

[michrech]

When you said it was making strips, I assumed it was printing, but the
entire characters weren't showing up (if you were printing text, that
is). I didn't realize you meant they were full character height and
solid.

www.agson.com carries quite a bit in the way of parts, including
Epson. If you give them a call, you can have them fax you whatever
parts diagrams you wish, which will have part numbers with (mostly
brief) descriptions. This will allow you to find part numbers and
order them.

Be wary, though. It has been my experience that the logic boards are
FAR more expensive than just replacing the printers in most cases.
Hell, just the LCD display on, say, a Lexmark Optra laser printer can
be $100+ (and that's just a two or three line display with 4
buttons!).

Good luck in your parts hunt/repairs! :)

Mike