Digital BW, The Print

Colin: Thanks for the info. So far I've just ignored the pads after I
reset the lights. And it looks like I'm going to keep doing that for a
while. Maybe some easier fix will come up before I end up sloshing ink
all over the carpet at some date in the future. 

Bob Michaels

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "colingruk"
<colin.conway@b...> wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Michaels" 
> <bob@b...> wrote:
> > I just had to reset the flashing red & green lights on my old 1280,
> > the ones that indicate by counting that the waste ink pads are 
> saturated. 
> > 
> > Questions:
> > 
> > 1) anyone know what the safety margin is from when the indicator
> > flashes (and locks up the printer) and when the waste ink pads
> > actually are dangerously saturated?
> > 2) where to get new waste ink pads for a 1280? I don't think Epson
> > sell parts direct to consumers. 
> > 3) how to replace them?
> > 
> > I'd really like to avoid boxing up my printer and sending it
> > someplace. Of course, I'd also like some idea of when old ink is 
> going
> > to start to seep out of the bottom of the printer. 
> 
> Bob, 
> 
> Towards the end of last year I did a reset on my 1290 when all lights 
> were flashing.  I live in rented accommodation and wanted to be safe 
> so I bought a 2 foot long plant container base, rested the printer on 
> some polystyrene sheet and continued to use it confident that any 
> overflow would be caught until spring came and I could do the waste 
> pads replacement out of doors.
> 
> Spring came at the weekend.  I broke the printer, terminally, as I 
> was reassembling.  The control panel has to be removed. In this 
> circumstance the extremely thin nine wire electrical connection is 
> spot soldered to the circuit board and is also the structural 
> connection.  The spot soldering is extremely weak and it came away in 
> me 'and guv.  I tried inserting nine stands of IDE connector ribbon 
> but was unsuccessful.
> 
> It was a struggle to access the soak pad tray, and I do not know how, 
> in the end I accessed the central screw.  One minute I couldn't reach 
> it and the next, after I had tweezered out two pads, it was clear in 
> view.  There are four waste pads one on top of the other.  The first 
> two are rectangular but the other two below are a complex shape and 
> the tray has to be removed first.  There was virtually no free ink in 
> the tray after using 8oz bottle of Generation 4 yellow, which was the 
> ink that rub out last week.  My conclusion is that more ink could 
> have been stored in the pads – they weren't full, and even more in 
> the tray.  I wish I hadn't touched the damn thing.
> 
> In future I will buy a tray to put the printer over.  I will fix 
> support blocks to keep the printer up, so that I can see into the 
> tray and put Pampers into the tray to catch any overflow that might 
> occur.  I'll never try to dissemble one of these printers again.
> 
> If you decide to try it and have a mangle, keep it to squeeze the ink 
> out of the absorber pads.
> 
> Experience is making mistakes and learning from them.  As I get 
> increasingly older I get increasingly more experienced!
> 
> Colin
> 
> > 
> > Bob Michaels