Something crazy is going on with my 740i. On occasion when I try to print, there's a whirring sound like the print head is moving back and forth, and then a bang or two, like the head is running into the side of the printer. All the red lights then go on, and the printer won't print.

I've gotten the printer to work by opening the lid and slidint the print heads all the way to the left, then turning the printer off and then on again.

What's up with that - does anyone know? Do I need to take it to the shop?

Yes take it back to the shop. It seems like one of the switches on the sides of your printer's head is dead or not well connected. For the head to detect if it has reached the left/right ends in its path, constructors put two electric micro switches on both sides. When the printer starts, it usually checks that these switches work correctly. Now, this can be repaired in a day, if you are dealing with serious people.

Since this is an Epson, I suppose the dead one is the left one, ie the whole thing wouldn't work otherwise.

Wow, I thought I was the only one with the epson 740 banging. Mine did the exact same routine, crashing into the walls of the printer. I have had my 740 for two years so after enough banging I retired it to the garage and got a epson 880 for 150 bucks.

yeah, mine is dead too... All the lights came on flashing a while back, I figured I needed ink... so when I got around to doing it, pressing the ink load button did NOTHing, instead of moving em to where I could open em up, it wouldn't budge the cartridges. So I slowly dragged em to where I could change the ink, it whirred, slid side to side, and again all flashing... sigh.

I'll try the slide all the way left thing, otherwise I'll be replacing it, hopefully with NON EPSON printer.

Anybody got a catapult I can use?

Catapult? No.

Gun? Yes. You'd be amazed how much anger can be released when you dump a whole clip of 9MM into something that broke down or just didn't work in the first place.

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"I drank what?"

-Socrates

I have also had this problem.

I found that setting the printer to envelope feed with the blue lever under the lid when you turn the printer on seems to sort it out, you can then set it back to plain paper later.

I now leave the printer on permanently and have never had the problem since.

The Dude, you're a man after my own heart! Another fan of percussive maintenance. It may not fix the thing, but it relieves the stress over the product's failure. Every time I see that piece-of-crap Sony Vaio laptop in the shallows of the lake I live on I get that warm and fuzzy feeling all over again. Just like when I flung it off the deck.


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-bo47

"There is no spoon."
iDisk: rseijas
Homepage: homepage.mac.com/rseijas

The head banging is caused by the print head sticking on the slide, a couple of drops of light oil is the cure.

I've had a 740 for well over a year now and I still like mine. I'm trying to find another one (without spending what I paid for mine.) I also leave mine on 24/7, but everytime I print for the first time (after putting my iMac to sleep or shutting down) it does an automatic cleaning or ink check or something. I have the option turned off in the utilities, but it does it anyway. I wish I knew how to stop it.

Still like it, though.
kacey

Here's what Epson had to say about the problem. I haven't had time to try it out yet.......

"Thank you for taking the time to contact Epson. It is my pleasure to
respond to your inquiry.

First of all please check to see if anything is obstructing the paper path
and carriage return area. Any obstruction such as a torn piece of paper or
paperclip can cause your printer to act in such a manner. If the paper path
and carriage return areas are clear please follow the Rom Reset procedure
indicated below.

WARNING:

By performing this Rom Reset, it may reset the ink monitoring system of
some printers. The status monitor will show full ink levels instead of the
actual level of ink remaining in the ink cartridges. You will eventually
run out of ink and your printer will not be able to give you an advance
warning until you replace the ink cartridges again.

ROM RESET

Please do the following steps to resolve your issue:

1. Turn the printer off using the power button on the panel of the printer.
2. Disconnect the interface cable at the back of the printer.
3. Hold down the "LOAD/EJECT" and "CLEANING" buttons simultaneously.
4. Turn the printer on. Release all buttons as soon as paper out light
flashes.
5. Quickly press the "LOAD/EJECT" button while paper out light is flashing.
6. Release the button and the printer will initialize.
7. Once initialization is complete, turn the printer off.
8. Reconnect the interface cable.
9. Turn the printer on and try to print a document.

If it is still not printing correctly, your printer has a one-year
replacement warranty. There are a few courses of action you can take.

1. You call Epson Technical Support at 562-276-1300, to make arrangements
for the printer to be replaced. ( a credit card # is required, only to
insure that the faulty printer is sent back to us)
2. You can call the same number to make arrangements for the printer to
be serviced. (no credit card # required)
3. You can take the printer back to the store where you got it and see if
they will replace it.
4. You can arrange service without calling but by, simply, replying to
this E-mail with the following information:

Request for service as per EPSON instructions
Full Name:
Full Address (including ZIP code):
Telephone Number:
Printer Name:
Printer Serial Number:
Date of Purchase:
Place of Purchase:

However if your printer is past the 1 year warranty period, please call
the Certified Epson Service Center listed below."

…sigh

aha!

Eureka!

I fixed the damned thing.

not sure what I did to fix it. Or rather, which thing I did actually fixed it...

I did these things:

Opened the printer
switched it from thick paper setting to thin paper setting (don't know why this would matter)
slowly dragged the printhead to the left (done this before)
brushed my fingers over the track (thinking i'd find an obstruction)
pushed it to the "change ink" location
opened the holders, pulled out the fresh cartridges, and put them back
pulled the printhead to the left again
closed the lid
said something sarcastic, and pushed the "ink load" button
died of shock when it actually whirred and traveled to the "change ink" location ON ITS OWN!!!
Opened ink holders again, just for the heck of it
closed em
pressed the ink load button again

And it whirred softly, the print heads glided towards home, stopped, and all the red lights finally went out.

So I went to the chooser, switched printers, switched back to 740, and the happy USB icon was BACK.

I cleaned the print heads a couple times, printed two test sheets, and then a photo.

Yay!

So I'm postponing dropping it out a window.

And so glad I didn't pay a tech to look at it!

Here's the fix for the "whir, whir, bang, bang" problem...
Use a tissue to clean the chrome bar that the print head travels on. It gets a build-up of gunk on it and the print head can't figure out where it is supposed to park along that bar.

I thought mine was dead too, because the slamming of the print head back & forth is pretty violent. But the cleaning of that bar fixed it.

All the best,

-Howie