Home Page->My Epson Printer

Upon returning to WPI from the 2003 Christmas break, I was appalled to find that my Epson C40UX printer had decided that the car ride was the perfect place to demonstrate it's less than sturdy manufacturing.

Epson C40UX after discovery that scissors are perfect for opening the case's plastic snaps.

Well, when the printer is turned on, the print head tries to go into the holding plastic thingie on the right side of the printer assembly, but fails, and emits a grinding noise. The printer then moves the head to the left side and signals an error condition.

Gee, I wonder why it couldn't move the print head into the holding thing.

After a few minutes of mental gymnastics, I reassemble the holder, and all is well in the world.

A few more fun facts about this particular Epson printer:

• The case is designed with a few screw holes. These house screws. Of course, to keep cost down, except for the vitally essential screws, they never make it into the final product. I guess the customer gets screws after all.
  
• There's a tube that runs from the holding device for the print head into something that looks like a sponge on the back of the printer under the paper tray. Ink is fed through that tube. I would love to construct conspiracy theories that the printers are deliberately wasting ink, but I'm sure it's to keep the print heads in working order.
  
• On a more serious note, the printer often uses the color ink cartridge to create black, rather than the black ink cartridge. As you may imagine, I am less than enthused.

That's all for today! Tune in for another edition of Epson Printer Fun!