I have had 3 refurbs and they all looked and preformed like new. I am now running a 1400 with an Eboni ink set and getting very satisfactory results. Your problem sounds a little like misallignment but I will leave that to others who are way more knowledgable about that. I just wanted to assure you that most refurbs are as good as new but that's from my experience. Good luck. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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Epson 1400 - yet more problems
2010-07-06 by Tom Garrett