I wonder if others have had an experience similar to mine on an Epson SP9900 where the head failed suddenly. I have seen a few other incidents similar to the one I am going to describe on various forums and wonder how often this kind of problem occurs.
Here's what happened:
I had a new head installed under warrantee in July. The warrantee ran our in August and in November, after having seen nothing but perfect nozzle checks, one morning a nozzle check showed that I was missing 15 lines of nozzles in two blocks on the cyan head. The check had shown no missing nozzles the day before.
Ironically, prior to the head change, I had been using 3rd party inks for 3 years (without any clogging issues) and switched to Epson inks when the new head was installed. I used Epson inks exclusively from that point on until the head self destructed. Of course, since the head install I had done regular nozzle checks and had seen no clogs. I had also, for good measure, done a head clean now and then. I had been printing on it regularly.
I did everything I could think of and had read about to open these nozzles, including 3 initial fills with head cleaner. Couldn't recover a single nozzle.
Epson of course did not stand behind the head since the warrantee had run out. Their policy is 90 days if you paid fully for a new head install and 30 days if it was installed under warrantee and the warrantee ran out within 30 days of the install.
The intractable nature of the missing nozzles and the fact that it was all on one color, makes me think the problem could well be a manufacturing defect.
At the same time the head was replaced, the docking station and dampers were replaced as well. The printer was also inspected for any other issues and fully lubricated. One day it was an amazing printer of fine art and the next a block of scrap metal.
Regardless, it was a $2500 bill to have the head replaced, so I just bought a new printer for an additional $2000 which got me a new printer and another year of warrantee. I'm going to pay for an additional 2 years and figure I will get at least 3 years like I had on this one and maybe more.
Please let me know if you have had an issue like this or know others who have.
Thanks,
--Kenoli
