Maintenance and Transporting

Improving Print Quality

Cleaning the print head

If your printouts are unexpectedly light or faint, or dots or lines are missing, you may need to clean the print head. This unclogs the nozzles so they can deliver ink properly. Print head cleaning uses ink, so clean it only if quality declines.

cCaution:

When you do not turn on your printer for a long time, the print quality can decline, so turn it on at least once a month to maintain good print quality.

Follow these steps to clean the print head from the printer’s control panel:

1.Make sure the printer is turned on but not printing, and the ink low or ink end error is not displayed. If so, you may need to replace an ink cartridge; see page 12 for details.

2.Press the Setup button.

3.Press the l or r button to display Clean Print

Head , then press the x Start button. The printer makes noise and cleaning takes about 30 seconds.

4.When cleaning is done, run a nozzle check to confirm the print head nozzles are clean. Make

sure A4 plain paper is loaded in the printer, press

the r button to display Check Ink Nozzles , then press the x Start button.

cCaution:

Do not turn off the printer or interrupt the cleaning process.

5.Examine the nozzle check pattern you printed. Each staggered horizontal and straight vertical line should be complete, with no gaps in the pattern, as shown below:

■If your printout looks okay, you are done. Press the y Stop/Clear button to finish.

■If there are any gaps (as shown below), press the x Start button to clean the print head again.

If you do not see any improvement after cleaning three or four times, check the solutions beginning on page 18. You can also turn the printer off and wait overnight—this allows any dried ink to soften—and then try cleaning the print head again.

Aligning the print head

If your printouts contain misaligned vertical lines or horizontal banding, you may need to align the print head.

You can align the print head either from the printer’s control panel or using your printer software.

Note:

For the best results, load A4 Epson Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper in the printer whenever you check the print head alignment.

1.Make sure the printer is turned on but not printing, and A4 paper is loaded.

2.Press the Setup button.

3.Press the l or r button to display Align Print

Head , then press the x Start button.

4.The following alignment sheet is printed.

14Maintenance and Transporting