Digital BW, The Print

Epson 1160 fans,

I posted this on the Piezo3000 list and thought you would also find 
it useful.
I ripped apart my 1160 just to see its guts before I buried it. The 
circuit board was fried and not worth repairing. I learned a bit 
about the print head that is worth passing on.  There is a picture of 
it here: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/8874/inkjet1.jpg  I 
presume other printer models are similar.
Now that I have seen the little booger up close I have a better idea 
about fixing clogs. You can just see the fine nozzle pattern in the 
pic. It is less delicate than I expected. The cleaning method of 
running the head back and forth over an alcohol or Windex soaked 
cloth on the roller bed should cause no damage and be very effective. 
The really clog susceptible area turns out to be the passages from 
the nipples (where the cart pushes on) to the nozzle cavity. I think 
that is where the clogs from hell originate.  I attached a piece of 
surgical tubing to a syringe full of alcohol and squirted it through 
each of the nipples. Two were completely clogged. I used a fine 
sewing needle to free them up and then thoroughly purged them. I see 
no reason to remove the head to get the worst clogs once you do the 
needle and flush trick. 

Getting the head off and on is not that hard. It is all snap fit once 
you remove the covers. There is some sort of adjustment lever on the 
side that I wasn't able to figure out. I marked its setting with a 
pencil. Incidentally if you haven't seen where all the yuck goes from 
purging - there is a very large, thick absorbent material that runs 
the length of the machine. I noticed that the area where I had been 
flooding with alcohol had cleared to white and the parking pads were 
white again. Hats off to Epson for a very sophisticated design.

AZ