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Cleaning an Epson Stylus 740 printing head

As usual, I cannot be responsible for any damage to your machines when you will experiment the following tutorial.

August 12 2004 update; another technique here

So welcome,  Epson printer owner! This page may help you to solve your problem.

Like me, any Espon printer owner have to face once in the printer's life some clogged printer heads...

-> Several solutions exist:

  1. software based cleaning process: rarely efficient in case of deep problems, this process consumes a lot of ink,
  2. changing the head for a new one: expensive and can only be done by specialized technicians,
  3. manually cleaning the defect heads: the less expensive and in most of the cases the most efficient solution.

As far as the manual cleaning process is concerned, two solutions:

  1. filling the empty cartridges with isopropylic alcohol and performing several printings to physically clean the heads ,
  2. disassembling the heads and manually clean them: my favourite technique I will demonstrate you hereafter.

First of all, will you please apologize me for the photos' quality: at the time I wrote this note, I only had a poor AGFA CL20 camera.

Let's go for 40 minutes of operation (including snapshots)!

Requirements:

  1. cruciform screwdriver
  2. large clear area for working
  3. little flat screwdriver
  4. isopropylic (or similar) alcohol
  5. soft duster pads ("kleenex" tissue or similar are best)

If one rule must be issued: IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, DO NOT FORCE onto printer's parts!

Conventionnaly, I will use a big arrow to indicate the part to be removed and I will use a small arrow to indicate the screew or the pin which maintain the big part in place.

1)

Diassemble the case: 4 cruciform screws
Two on rear...

2)

...Two under the cover, in the front of the machine.

3)

Reaching the axis driving the heads:

a) from the left side (sheet feeder facing you)

Remove the security pin which lock the big cogwheel.

Warning: behing the cogwheel, a spring.

4)

Once the cogwheel removed, remove the screw (small arrow) to detach the support axis.
Mark the position of the screw to be able to reassemble the support in the same position.

5)

Axis is freed on the left.
Now go on the other side!

6)

b) from the right side (sheet feeder still facing you)

On the left, the head pressure regulation, kept in place by a spring and fixed onto the axis support (on the right). The latter is attached to the printer's chassis by a screw (in my printer, an yellow mark in the plastic) and is clamped on the plastic axis support (small piece low on the image).

7)

Blue arrows point to the pieces extracted from the left of the printer:
axis, spring, axis support, screw, metal pin.

In yellow: the dissambled lever (but still attached to the support axis), the small yellow arrows point to the spring and the screw.

Caution: under the plastic axis' support one can find a ring.

8)

Remove the axis and unlock the printer head.

Axis can be easily removed as it is no longer clamped on the right of the printer.

Remember to push onto the small spring which keep the belt in place.

9)

Doing this, the head can be simultaneously unhooked on the other side (big arrow) and the axis can be pushed out.

10)

Now cleaning...
Once the axis removed, the head can be upturned to be cleaned. 

11)

Same head head..but now clean! One can also:

  1. Clean (alcohol) the rubber rolls.
  2. Clean (alcohol) the axis and lubricate it with adequate oil, like sewing machine oil.

12)

To rebuilt the printer, follow the instructions above... in reverse ordrer!

Just a small difficult step. When placing the big cogwheel into place, this wheel must exactly draw into the little wheel which face the big one: otherwise, no way to put the metal pin in place to lock them.

13)

Left: before cleaning, right: after.  

If you wish to thank or forsten me...

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